Bill backs stem cell research

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Bill backs stem cell research
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
By JOSIE HUANG, Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald

SCARBOROUGH - In her gloved hand, researcher Nayani Pramanik holds one of the latest breakthroughs in Maine's fledgling world of human stem cell work.
A stem-cell-derived gene that limits the production of red blood cells courses through the liquid she drips into a test tube.
It's a gene that scientists at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute have learned how to inhibit in anemic patients, whose low reserves of red blood cells cause fatigue, and in the worst cases, fatal organ damage.
And, scientists say, it is another solid argument for why funding must keep flowing to human stem cell research in Maine.
"It would be terrific timing to sturdy up what is on solid legs, but short ones because we're only a few years into the program," said Don Wojchowski, director of the Stem Cell and Progenitor Cell Biology program created in 2003.
A couple of state legislators are offering a potentially major boost to Maine's biomedical community with proposals that would set aside up to $20 million for research using human stem cells.
State money could bridge the funding gap that scientists say occurs when federal grants run out and applications for new grants are pending. It's a wait made all the more nerve-wracking by increasingly fierce competition for grants related to federal budget cutbacks.
Travis Roy, a Yarmouth native who in 1995 suffered a spinal cord injury while playing in his first hockey game for Boston University, said the more funding sources, the better.
"I just want to give the researchers every avenue and option to find cures," said Roy, whose eponymous foundation has funded stem cell research. "It just offers hope, and that's what I live for -- trying to make that hope into a concrete solution."
Known as building blocks of the body for their ability to be coaxed into becoming any kind of tissue, stem cells offer the promise of cures for a wide range of diseases, including diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's.
For decades, Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor has been doing stem cell research on mice without controversy. The same goes for more recent work done with human stem cells taken from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood.
But stem cells extracted from unused embryos stored at fertility clinics are another story. Because the process usually requires destroying the embryos, some groups say their use violates the sanctity of life.
State money for biomedical projects has been used to fund embryonic stem cell research, but proposals to create funds explicitly for stem cell research that includes embryonic stem cells already are generating more attention.
Maine Right to Life and the Maine chapter of the Concerned Women of America praise the work done with adult stem cells, but say they will fight public funding of embryonic stem cell research this session.
"I have two sons who are Type 1 diabetics, and I certainly want stem cell research for them," said Charla Bansley, the Ellsworth-based state director of Concerned Women of America. "But I don't think taking the life of another child is right."
Embryonic stem cells, though, are especially prized by scientists because they are the most easily manipulated. And supporters of the research point out that the embryos would be discarded anyway.
Straddling both sides of the issue in 2001, President Bush restricted federal funding for research to embryonic stem cell lines in existence. He issued the first veto of his tenure last September, when Congress attempted to lift those funding restrictions.
The House of Representatives passed a similar measure last month -- the Senate is expected to follow -- but the margin is not large enough to override another presidential veto.
In the last several years, state lawmakers across the country have considered hundreds of bills on stem cell research, their purposes ranging from limiting the work to promoting it, said Alissa Johnson, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures in Washington, D.C.
But the vast majority go nowhere, Johnson said.
"Given the ethical concerns that people may have, I think it's definitely a challenge for the state legislatures to come to a conclusion of what is the right approach to take, if any," she said.
In the past seven years, just seven states have authorized money for some form of human stem cell research. Legislators in Maine say they must play catch-up if the state's research institutes are to compete with those in other states.
Rep. Don Pilon of Saco said his proposal calling for a $20 million bond for human stem cell research would provide a needed boost to Maine's economy, which suffers from a dying paper industry and an aging population. In Maine, the average researcher makes more than $63,000 a year, according to the Maine Biomedical Research Coalition.
"I think this is a little niche market that Maine can create for itself and keep good jobs here, and keep young people interested in staying in Maine," Pilon said.
House Speaker Glenn Cummings, a Portland Democrat, also has filed draft legislation. His seeks a $10 million bond for human stem cell research.
His proposal also calls for a state statute protecting the right to do research on embryonic stem cells.
The proposals seem as though they would benefit the Maine Medical Center Research Institute most directly. It's the only facility in the state currently experimenting with human stem cells.
But human stem cells are on the horizon for the newly created Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health, a partnership of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, Jackson Laboratory and the University of Maine.
The institute, which is in the process of hiring scientists and building a facility in Brewer, plans to use adult stem cells to develop cancer therapies and ways to replace tissue and bone removed because of tumors, said director Janet Hock.
Hock, who was hired three weeks ago, said state support would be a boon for an institute as new as hers, allowing for pilot projects, for example.
"Every time you start a pilot project, you generate data and improve your chances of getting federal money," Hock said.
She credited state governments for keeping up the momentum of stem cell research in the United States, which she said lags behind countries such as England, China and India because of the federal funding restrictions.
New Jersey and California were the first states to dedicate funding to stem cell research, and they have committed the most money. As recently as December, the New Jersey Legislature authorized the issuance of $270 million in bonds to fund several stem cell facilities.
Maine has not considered stem cell legislation in the past, according to the state Office of Policy and Legal Analysis, but the state has helped to fund the research through general funds and bond money.
Since 2001, the state has allocated more than $40 million to three research institutes that perform stem cell research: Jackson Laboratory; Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, which works primarily with marine life; and the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.
Some of the $5 million-plus received by the research institute was used to build laboratory space and buy equipment for stem cell research. That infrastructure, institute officials say, helped the stem cell program secure a $11 million fund grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2003. Since then, the institute has expanded its staff from about 30 scientists and support staffers to more than 40.
Wojchowski said the institute continues to attract the brightest talent from institutions such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Center and Harvard University, people who want the chance to initiate and lead new experiments.
One scientist, Zack Wang, has been able to grow blood vessels in mice by taking human embryonic stem cells and converting them into so-called progenitor cells primed to become blood vessel tissue. The hope is that this can be replicated in heart disease patients.
Travis Roy, who last year visited the research institute from Boston, where he is based as a motivational speaker, said he was excited by the work being done there.
"I was proud of the state getting cutting-edge in the research," Roy said.
Staff Writer Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at:
jhuang@pressherald.com

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