Dr K.S.Parthasarathy
The article can be located at the following link;
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090320/science.htm#1
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Friday, March 20, 2009, Chandigarh, India
Stem cell research gets a shot in the arm
By K S Parthasarathy
On March 9, 2009 US President Barack Obama signed an epoch making executive order “removing barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells”. It is indeed a shot in the arm of the beleaguered stem cell researchers.
Stem cells are “blank slate” cells which can divide and renew over long periods. They can develop into a specialised cell, tissue or organ and can effectively serve as a sort of repair system for the body.
Medical specialists believe that stem cells have unlimited potential which can be used to return memory to Alzheimer’s patients, to enable wheel-chair bound patients to walk or to replace damaged skin of patients.
The possibility of miracle cures lies in tweaking the cells to develop into new insulin-producing cells to treat or even cure diabetics, cardio-myocytes to replace damaged heart tissue or cartilage cells to treat arthritis, new nerve cell connections to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive degenerative disease that attacks the motor neurons in the spinal cord; it leads to debilitating paralysis of limbs and respiration. Appropriately morphed stem cells may replace nerve cells damaged due to spinal injury.
“Advances over the past decade in this promising scientific field have been encouraging, leading to broad agreement in the scientific community that the research should be supported by Federal funds”, Obama wrote in his order.
He conceded that for the past eight years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions.
On August 9, 2001, Bush decided that federal funds may be awarded for research using human embryonic stem cells if “The derivation process (which begins with the destruction of the embryo) was initiated prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT on August 9, 2001; the stem cells must have been derived from an embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed.”
Mr. Bush did not accept the appeal of several scientists including eighty Nobel laureates urging funding for research on human embryonic stem cells.
On March 9,while welcoming Mr Obama’s decision The New York times noted that Mr. Bush restricted federal financing for embryonic stem cell research to what turned out to be 20 or so stem cell lines that had been created prior to his announcement.
“Those lines are too limited in number, variety and quality to allow the full range of needed research”, the paper clarified.
Obama’s “move ends a long, bleak period in which the moral objections of religious conservatives were allowed to constrain the progress of a medically important science”, the paper observed.
Scientists have to wait till new guidelines governing what research can qualify for federal support are issued by the National Institutes of Health in 120 days as decreed by Mr. Obama
There is another roadblock in the form of Dickey-Wicker amendment (by Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, and Representative Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi) which prohibits the use of federal funds to support scientific work that involves the creation of embryos for research purposes or the destruction of human embryos (as happens when stem cells are extracted). Congress has actively renewed that ban each year since 1996.
Scientists who want to create embryos—and extract stem cells — matched to patients with specific diseases, cannot get federal funding till Congress withdraws the amendment. Obama acted swiftly; he left further action to the Congress.
The writer is Raja Ramanna Fellow, Department of Atomic Energy.
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