Stemming the tide
State outpaced in race to open stem-cell centers
By Lisa Eckelbecker TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
leckelbecker@telegram.com
In a Hartford hotel ballroom last week, scientists crammed awkwardly into narrow chairs to listen to presentations on laboratory breakthroughs while young workers handed out tote bags and biomedical vendors filled tables with brochures.
As conferences go, it was pretty standard stuff.
But StemCONN ’07, as it was known, was more than just another meeting for the lab-coat and microscope set. The two-day event, which included presentations to state legislators, was designed to mark Connecticut’s arrival in the high-profile world of state-funded stem-cell research. With nearly $20 million in grants already awarded, some of the officials instrumental in Connecticut’s stem-cell policies wanted to celebrate.
“There will only be a few places that will be stem-cell centers,” said Paul R. Pescatello, chief executive of Connecticut United for Research Excellence, the state’s bioscience group. “This event is to bring everybody together as a showcase of what we’re doing.”
Connecticut’s effort stands out because just across the state line in Massachusetts, no similar public initiative exists. That causes concern in some quarters.
The University of Massachusetts is seeking $66.4 million in state funding for a UMass Stem Cell Institute, an initiative that would boost the field with grants, new faculty and lab construction. But the proposal also raises questions about how a state facing a $1 billion deficit could afford to keep up with a wave of public stem-cell initiatives.
“It becomes a challenge when you are faced with communities that are cutting teachers and policemen, an immediate need as opposed to a long-term investment,” said state Sen. Edward M. Augustus Jr., D-Worcester, a member of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which wrestles with the state’s spending matters. “We need to figure out how to do both.”
Sometimes misunderstood and controversial, stem cells are a hot topic in statehouses across the country.
Stem cells are master cells that can replicate and differentiate into other kinds of cells. They can be found in humans and animals. The earliest stem cells are found in embryos. Other kinds of “adult” stem cells can be found in the body and umbilical cord blood.
Some scientists believe human stem cells could be harnessed to grow cells that could treat difficult ailments, such as Parkinson’s disease or spinal-cord injuries. Although a number of U.S. researchers are working on animal and human stem cells, human embryonic stem-cell work is controversial because some critics believe that creating, destroying or manipulating human embryos to generate stem cells is immoral.
Under President Bush’s administration, the federal government will only fund research on human embryonic stem cells if scientists work with lines of cells created before August 2001. But some scientists argue those lines are inadequate, and several states have jumped in with public money for experiments and facilities.
California voters approved the sale of $3 billion in bonds, with proceeds to go to stem-cell research. Connecticut has created a $100 million program funded by bonds. New Jersey has approved $500 million in bonds for research grants and facilities, and other states have fashioned a variety of initiatives.
Theodore Rasmussen, a scientist at the University of Connecticut Center for Regenerative Biology, who was awarded $200,000 in Connecticut funding for research into epigenetic changes in human embryonic stem-cell lines, said state money makes it possible for him to work with newer stem-cell lines.
“I can’t use federal funds for some of this research,” he said. “That’s why it’s important.”
Not all state efforts have gone smoothly, however. The California initiative has been tied up in court, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had to loan the initiative state money to make the first round of grant awards.
At the University of Connecticut, it has taken months to get an embryonic stem-cell research oversight committee, or ESCRO, up and running. The committee, which includes community members, is responsible for the complex task of reviewing the ethical implications of proposed research, and it has the final say over what can go forward.
“The ethics and the science need to develop together,” said Anne L. Hiskes, chairwoman of the committee and an associate professor of philosophy at UConn. The goal, she said, “is the promotion of human welfare and the protection of human dignity. If we do well, we’re protecting the research.”
Massachusetts legislators last year approved millions of dollars in funding for a number of life-science initiatives, including $10 million for a bioscience center. Legislators also approved stem-cell research legislation and set up an advisory committee.
Yet the new UMass proposal seeks to go even further by requesting money that would be used over six years to hire faculty at UMass campuses, construct laboratory facilities in Amherst and Worcester, and fund research. If a new facility is constructed in Worcester, it might serve as a space where scientists could work with newer human embryonic stem-cell lines not approved by the federal government.
The money would help UMass compete for stem-cell researchers, and it might help keep students and postdoctoral researchers who are drawn to places like California after they leave UMass, said Dr. Robert W. Finberg, chairman of the department of medicine at UMass Medical School in Worcester.
“I think we’re potentially bidding for the same faculty and postdocs (with other states) and other countries,” Dr. Finberg said.
Although some states have established mechanisms to distribute funding to multiple institutions or teams of researchers, the UMass proposal focuses largely on UMass research. That’s OK with some observers.
“As a starting point, given the state’s fiscal frailty and what’s happening with city and town budgets, this is a fair starting point,” said Kevin O’Sullivan, chief executive of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, an economic development organization in Worcester.
Massachusetts has not traditionally invested in the research feeding its innovative economic sectors, but it should do so now when it comes to stem-cell research, according to Patrick J. Larkin, deputy director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a Westboro development agency.
“Could there be more of a strategic and expansive process around the ultimate concept for this kind of center? Yeah. Probably,” Mr. Larkin said. “But at the end of the day, building this capacity is so important to be competitive with other states that this is a good start. This is a great start.”
Others would like to see the state adopt a broader approach. Eric W. Overstrom, professor and head of the department of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, recently helped evaluate scientific funding proposals before Maryland’s $15 million stem-cell research fund, and all came from teams, he said. Massachusetts could benefit from a broad stem-cell initiative that includes multiple universities and companies, he said.
“We often, as academics, tend to be very focused on the discovery side of the work,” he said. “But if we’re trying to get therapies to market and patients, you need to integrate the full” array of institutions.
Few commercial stem-cell operations have emerged so far in Massachusetts. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. moved its headquarters from Worcester to California, partly because of California’s funding opportunities, but it kept a laboratory in Worcester. Proponents of stem-cell research suggest that funding the science could lead to commercial opportunities, plus jobs, in the future.
But the biotechnology industry may have other wishes. The most important thing the state could do is clarify regulations issued last year that create concern about whether Massachusetts researchers could face penalties for working on embryos created for research, said Alison Taunton-Rigby, president and chief executive of RiboNovix Inc. of Lexington and a member of the state’s Biomedical Research Advisory Council. Gov. Deval L. Patrick said Friday he would push public health officials to review those regulations.
In addition, the biotech industry would benefit if the state took a broader approach to investment in the life sciences beyond stem cells, especially since stagnant funding for the National Institutes of Health has left many Massachusetts researchers delayed or out of the running for grants that keep laboratories going, she said.
“The state should be financially supporting life sciences, because there is a critical funding gap,” Ms. Taunton-Rigby said. “The difficulty of getting research funding for any life-science research right now is incredibly tight.”
Jack M. Wilson, UMass president, said investments in UMass pay off in economic activity, economic development and jobs, and that broader stem-cell initiatives in states such as California enjoyed bigger funding.
“If the state were to see fit to do a larger initiative like the state of California has done, I think that would be terrific,” Mr. Wilson said.
But he said the state also should see it is falling behind.
“Our competitors have reason to be excited. We’re very well positioned to do stem-cell research,” he said. “But there hasn’t been a state strategy yet, and we can’t let them get ahead of us.”
