Joslin President C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., Statement on President Bush's Stem Cell Announcement
BOSTON — August 10, 2001 — I was pleased to hear President Bushés ruling on stem cell research, and view this as a good "first step" to assuring that research in this important area can continue. However, it is important to keep in mind the limitation of what has been proposed. Indeed, there are a number of relatively simple routes Congress and the federal government can take to build upon that decision — which will help to ensure the future of stem cell research:
1. Enact legislation to ensure that embryonic stem (ES) cell research is funded, and pass legislation to support stem cell research at least to the level the President has authorized so there isnét a later threat that stem cell research will become more limited.
2. Call upon the NIH to establish a repository and distribution center for human and other embryonic stem cell lines to assure that these cells are available to all qualified scientists and academic research institutions.
While President Bush spoke of 60 ES cell lines, the exact number is really unknown. Furthermore, currently the majority of the cell lines in existence are owned by private industry, which limits access to the cells and confounds their usage by policies designed to control any discoveries made using these cells. This policy limits academic inquiry because many investigators will not get access to the cells and many academic institutions wonét allow researchers to use substances in their research that have these kinds of strings attached. The strength of academic research has been the willingness of most academic investigators to share such novel reagents with other scientists without limitation. If the NIH became a repository for certain stem cell lines, this would enable many more researchers to perform studies using these cells, and would yield a much quicker insight as to the potential and/or limitations of this area of research.
3. Ultimately it will probably still be important to pass legislation to enable scientists to isolate more stem cells and create new stem cell lines.
While 60 ES cells lines would be a good start (if they are available to all investigators), existing stem cell lines were developed using varying technologies, but by no means using all the possible techniques available — or that might later be devised — to create those stem cell lines. This may limit their potential to grow and differentiate in culture, or have other variations/mutations that limit the interpretation of results obtained with these cells. Thus, it will be important eventually to create additional cell lines using other approaches to determine if these have a greater potential for use in treatment of human disease and to determine if different ES cells behave the same or differently. It will also be important to have "early passages" of stem cell lines readily available for years to come, because as a cell from a stem cell line is replicated and re-replicated, mutations and other defects can develop. To ensure that the availability of "early passages" does not become depleted, new cell lines will need to be developed at some point.
Read Dr. Kahn's earlier comments about Stem Cell Research.
