Obama overturns stem-cell ban

Ringkasan artikel oleh Erika Hayden yang dipublikasikan online 9 March 2009, Nature doi:10.1038/458130a:

Scientists and research advocates worldwide are celebrating the removal of rules limiting research on human embryonic stem cells in the United States, which they say have restricted the field's progress for seven and a half years. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is now working out policies that will allow researchers to apply for grant money from the agency to study some of the hundreds of cell lines created since 9 August 2001, when President George W. Bush limited federal funding to research on lines in existence at that time. Some scientists are already proposing to use the new lines in applications for $200 million in NIH 'Challenge' grants, which will be funded by the economic stimulus package signed into law last month. Details of these grants were unveiled last week.

Estimates of the number of new lines range from 400 to 1,000. Unlike the 21 lines previously eligible for federal funding, many of the lines have been made from embryos that had genetic predispositions to specific diseases, or were derived using 'animal-free' preparations, and thus could be more relevant to laboratory research and preclinical studies.

President Barack Obama signed the executive order on 9 March at a White House ceremony attended by scientists, lawmakers, patients and patient advocates. "We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research," Obama said. "And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield."

The new order asks the NIH to develop guidelines and regulations within 120 days to govern federally funded human embryonic stem-cell research. Work is already under way at the NIH to develop guidelines covering the eligibility of cell lines for federal funding. These will be based on issues such as the kind of informed consent given by couples who donated the leftover embryos from which the cells were collected. Such cells can develop into any type of tissue in the body, and are thus thought to hold enormous promise as tools for dissecting disease processes, screening possible treatments and developing new therapies.

Legislation to codify the change has already been introduced into both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It explicitly permits federal funding for research on stem-cell lines derived with parental permission from embryos left over at fertility clinics and other­wise slated for destruction. At least one observer has suggested that legislation expli­citly approving federal funding for stem-cell research is needed to address the Dickey–Wicker amendment, a law first enacted by Congress in 1996 and renewed every year since, that prohibits federal funding of research in which embryos are created or destroyed.
Those who oppose the research because it involves the destruction of embryos criticized Obama's decision. They say that the NIH should support research only on cells that are not derived from embryos, such as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are derived from adult cells but have many properties of embryonic stem cells.

But iPS cells, first created in 2006, are not a substitute for embryonic stem cells, Kriegstein says. "iPS technology and its ongoing improvement will likely eclipse embryonic stem-cell lines for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, but for now, embryonic stem cells are clearly needed. And it's still not clear how iPS cells will ultimately compare for therapeutic purposes."◊