Harvard Harvests Controversial Embryo Cells

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists at Harvard University announced on Wednesday they had created 17 batches of stem cells from human embryos, showing that science intends to pursue the field despite some political opposition.

Dr. Douglas Melton of Harvard Medical School (news - web sites) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said he and colleagues had used private, legal funding to make 17 batches of the cells, and made them available free of charge.

"What we have done is to make use of previously frozen human fertilized eggs that otherwise were going to be discarded," Melton told reporters in a telephone briefing.

His team's achievement, announced ahead of publication by the New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites), doubles the number of stem cell batches or "lines" that are available to researchers who also have access to private funds to work with them -- or who are based outside of the United States.

President Bush (news - web sites) has forbidden the use of federal funds to manipulate or create human embryos for research and limited scientific research to a few existing batches of cells taken from fertility clinic leftovers. And he backs legislation that would ban the use of cloning technology to create such embryos.

But the Harvard announcement, along with moves in California and New Jersey to explicitly support such research, shows scientists are intent on moving ahead with what many consider the most promising field of medicine to emerge in more than a century.

Just last month South Korean scientists announced they had created several cloned human embryos with the hope of finding a way to mine them for stem cells. Private U.S. companies such as Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts are also pursuing the field, but say it is difficult to get funding.

SEEKING AN OUTLET

"Science is like water seeking its own level," Dan Perry, head of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, said in a telephone interview.

"It is going to find an outlet somewhere," added Perry, whose nonprofit group was set up to support stem cell research of all kinds.

Perry and others say they would rather federal funding was used to organize the research, so it could be regulated.

"Privately funded research is under no obligation to publish their data, including negative data," he said.

Melton said a variety of cells is needed so scientists can study them.

"In my case we want them only to become pancreatic beta cells that make insulin," said Melton, who is seeking a cure for his two children with type-1 diabetes, a disease that affects as many as 2 million Americans.

Stem cells are master cells that have the potential to grow into various kinds of tissue. Taken from embryos, this power to differentiate into various cell types is unlimited.

Taken either from embryos used from attempts to make test-tube babies, or using cloning technology, they appear not to cause potentially deadly transplant responses such as rejection.

Opponents, including Bush, some members of the U.S. Congress and some but not all anti-abortion groups, say any use of a human embryo amounts to murder and is unethical.





They are pushing for legislation that would outlaw the practice completely and in the meantime Bush has restricted the use of federal funds to work with embryos.

Bush argues that stem cell lines that existed when he announced the ban in August 2001 would be sufficient for current research.

Most supporters of the research dispute this.

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