Harvard Stem Cells Preferred By Scientists Over Government Sources

Embryonic stem cell research continues to move forward in the U.S., despite yesterday's highly publicized presidential veto of a bill that would have provided government funding for research using stem cell lines not approved by President Bush in 2001. Bloomberg News reports that research scientists prefer stem cells provided by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute over the existing lines made available by the U.S. National Stem Cell Registry. According to Bloomberg News, "Since 2003, 667 stem cell batches were sent to other labs from Harvard, the biggest private supplier in the U.S. That compares with 246 sent by the cell bank, the main distributor of cells approved by President George W. Bush." Stem cells are provided by the Harvard lab at no cost to scientists, whereas the National Stem Cell Bank charged Larry Goldstein, a University of California-San Diego scientist, $10,000 for just two vials of Bush-approved cells, which are of lower quality because they have been damaged by age. Only 22 of the U.S. cell batches are usable, scientists say, compared to the "more than 60 lines" that President Bush claimed were available in 2001. Bloomberg reports, "The Harvard lines were derived by Douglas Melton, 52, a biologist who began studying embryonic stem cells when two of his children were diagnosed with diabetes. Since 2004, Melton has created 28 of his own lines. The lines were created using funding from the private Howard Hughes Medical Institute based in Chevy Chase, Maryland, one of several U.S.-based charitable foundations contributing millions to stem cell research. Although no one has an overall figure, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation alone contributed $4.8 million to such research in 2005."