Stem Cell Research

By Steven Ertelt, Editor, LifeNews, November 21, 2004

Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Some amazing developments are being reported in adult stem cell research, raising new questions about the wisdom of engaging in destructive embryonic stem cell research.

Researchers have now shown that transplanted adult stem cells can improve vision in eyes that have been damaged by retinal disease.

The scientific breakthrough is the cover story in the November issue of the journal "Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science."

“These findings hold great promise for potential treatments for people suffering from macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other retinal diseases," Michael Young, the lead author of the study, told the press.

Young and his team tested their adult stem cell theory in mice. The research team speculated that the transplanted cells secreted a substance that saved fragile cells.

"These are the first steps toward the use of stem cells for saving existing vision and then -- down the road -- restoring vision that has already been lost," Young said.

The researchers are now studying whether adult stem cells can be used to improve the vision of pigs, whose eyes more closely resemble human eyes.

In another study, Texas researchers believe they've perfected a way to deliver cancer treatment directly to tumors. While the initial experiments have been done on mice, human trials could begin soon.

The researchers in the Texas study used adult stem cells which move like guided missiles, targeting tumor cells.

In yet another study, in Virginia, adult stem cells taken from human fat have been used to improve the functioning of damaged hearts.

“The concept of a person being able to recycle excess or unwanted fat through a procedure that would help them medically is exciting," Dr. Adam Katz of the University of Virginia Medical Center told the Daily Progress newspaper.

“It could have been that we put the cells in and found nothing of worth," Katz told the newspaper. “That's not what happened."

Researchers took human fat stem cells from people who had had elective surgeries, such as liposuction, and injected them into the heart muscle of five mice after they had had heart attacks.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, doctors who injected a stroke victim's brain with adult stem cells from bone marrow plan to try the treatment in other patients after some initial hopeful signs.

Dr. Hans Fernando Dohmann told Reuters news service that doctors plan to go ahead with a research project involving 15 patients who will be injected with adult stem cells.

“What excites us most is that there is biological activity (in the area affected by the stroke) ... that the injection of cells led to no electric disturbances in the brain, and there was no inflammatory reaction," Dohmann told Reuters.

The initial test subject was a 54-year-old woman who had suffered a stroke in August, leaving her without the ability to talk or move the right side of her body. After doctors injected the adult stem cells, she recovered her ability to move and began to speak again.

Observers note that the tremendous progress being made in adult stem cell research indicates that embryonic stem cell research, which involves the killing of human embryos, is unnecessary.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As the House of Representatives considers competing stem cell research bills, scientists and observers of the stem cell research debate point out that adult stem cells have proven more useful and effective than their embryonic counterparts.

Phil Coelho is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Thermogenesis Corp., which provides cord blood stem cell processing and cryopreservation systems used by major cord blood stem cell banks.

He says that adult stem cells have "been used clinically about 30,000 times."

Cord blood cells, the subject of one of the bills Congress will consider, "have some dramatic advantages," Coelho says.

"[T]hey can become several—and perhaps all—the different tissue types; they involve no donor risks; they have the capacity for many cell divisions; and they cause less graft versus host disease," he explained.

According to Coelho, the first patient to be treated with adult stem cells, in 1988, shows no evidence of the Fanconi Anemia that he suffered from as a child.

So far, more than 6,000 patients and 66 diseases have been successfully treated with stem cells from cord blood.

Coelho says the results from the adult stem cells from cord blood have been tremendous.

"A recent study found a survival rate of around 70 percent among high-risk adults treated with cord blood," he said. "Results are even more promising with children, with clinical trials showing an 80 percent survival rate for children with immunodeficiency diseases."

Florida Congressman Dave Weldon, an OBGYN, agrees.

"Adult stem cells and, in particular, cord blood stem cells are going to be the sources for the regenerative, miraculous medicine in the future," he said. "Embryonic stem cell research is just not getting good research results."

On the other hand, embryonic stem cell research has yet to cure a single patient.

No currently approved treatments are being used on patients as a result of research on the cells and there are no human trials. After 20 years of research on embryonic stem cells, the only results have shown they are unsafe.

In studies, they have produced tumors, cause transplant rejection, and they have formed the wrong kind of needed replacement cells.

That's why private investors have funneled most of their money behind adult stem cell research.

William Haseltine, CEO of Human Genome Sciences, is a leading advocate of embryonic stem cell research. But, he says results are decades away and his company is not spending money on the unproven cells.

“The routine utilization of human embryonic stem cells for medicine is 20 to 30 years hence," Haseltine admits.

"The timeline to commercialization is so long that I simply would not invest," Haseltine added. "You may notice that our company has not made such investments.”

Kelly Hollowell, Ph.D., a molecular and cellular pharmacologist and a patent attorney, says another problem with embryonic stem cell research is that it requires harvesting so many cells and the process requires women's eggs to create human embryos.

"To treat, for example, the 17 million diabetes patients in the United States will require a minimum of 850 million to 1.7 billion human eggs," Hollowell said. "Collecting 10 eggs per donor will require a minimum of 85 to 170 million women."

"The total cost would be astronomical, at $100,000 to $200,000 for 50 to 100 human eggs per each patient," Dr. Hollowell explained.

She explained at a Heritage Foundation conference that the process of obtaining eggs puts women at risk.

"Superovulation regimens for fertility treatments would be used to obtain women's eggs," Hollowell explained. "The risks associated with superovulation regimens or high-dose hormone therapies are debated."

She said women who engage in the process can be subjected to a "spectrum of problems including memory loss, seizure, stroke, infertility, cancer, and even death."

"The scientific data on embryonic stem cell research simply does not support continued investment in research. Even if the research were successful, it is morally bankrupt and endangers women," Hollowell concludes.

Adult Stem Cells More Effective Than Those From Aborted Babies
Source: Cybercast News Service; April 9, 2001

London, England -- New research in the UK has raised further hope that adult stem cells can be used to repair the damage caused by strokes to brain cells, British scientists heard Monday.

Experiments carried out on rats indicate that transplants of stem cells - the "building blocks" of bodily tissue - can help stroke victims regain movement, senses and understanding. They also show that the adult cells were more effective than cells from aborted babies, which have been at the center of a recent scare involving the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease.

The researchers are presenting their findings Monday to the British Neuroscience Association's annual conference in northern England, and published them in the Stroke Journal.

The potential of stem cells to develop and translate into other types of cells has excited scientists worldwide, raising hopes they may be able to help undo the damage of strokes and help cure degenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

But the issue has also raised controversy, primarily in that many researchers want to harvest stem cells from human embryos, believing them to offer the greatest benefits. Other specialists argue that "adult stem cells" - taken for example from umbilical cords - offer an effective, and ethical alternative.

The use of embryos for the purpose of harvesting stem cells alarms pro-lifers.

The early-stage human beings are destroyed after the stem cells have been removed. Adding to the debate is the recent approval by the UK government of cloning of human embryos for this limited purpose. An Italian scientist has already announced his intention to clone a human being within a year.

When a person has a stroke, blood supply is cut off from areas of brain tissue, leading to the loss of many mature cells, and often leaving the patient unable to control his or her movements.

The new study, by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and a biotechnology company, showed that transplanted adult stem cells made their way to whichever area of the damaged brain needed repair. The adult stem cells also appeared to boost the production of an important protein that usually increases after a stroke as the brain attempts to heal itself, helping to connect damaged and undamaged parts of the organ.

The experimental rats' movement and cognitive abilities improved after the introduction of the stem cells, the researchers found.

The movement of stem cells to the damaged area of the brain differs from the behavior of fetal stem cells, which they say remain in one place when transplanted.

Scientists in the United States have been injecting cells from aborted babies into the brains of Parkinson's patients, but it was reported in early March that the experiment was being abandoned after side-effects described as "absolutely devastating" were observed.

"We expect that stem cells will prove far safer and more flexible for repair of brain damage than primary fetal cells," research leader Dr. Helen Hodges was quoted as saying. "They are not likely to worsen symptoms, as recently reported in elderly Parkinson patients."

The British study comes in the wake of an earlier one by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, which came to similar conclusions, as did another last year by the Institute for Stem Cell Research in Milan, Italy.

Researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa have also found that stem cells from the tiny amount of blood found in the umbilical cords of newborn babies may be able to help repair damaged brain tissue after a stroke.

The research has provided further weight to arguments that adult stem cells may hold sufficient potential to make it unnecessary to use embryonic cells - or to use therapeutic research as justification to allow embryonic cloning.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The President's Council on Bioethics on Thursday released a new report on four proposed methods of embryonic stem cell research that supporters hope can obtain embryonic stem cells without destroying human life. The report called two of the ideas "ethically problematic."

"Much of the ethical controversy over stem cells derives from the fact that, until now, the only way to obtain human pluripotent stem cell lines has been to derive them from living human embryos by a process that necessarily destroys the embryos," the report says.

It adds, "If a way could be found to derive such stem cell lines without creating and destroying human embryos, a good deal of that ethical controversy would subside."

That was the message of scientists in December who hoped to get the panel to support possible alternatives to embryonic stem cell research.

The 18 member panel provided a brief overview of the possibilities.

"Stem cells might be obtainable from dead embryos; from living embryos, by nondestructive biopsy; from bioengineered embryo-like artifacts; and from reprogrammed adult somatic cells," the report says.

However the panel called taking cells from living embryos through nondestructive biopsy and from bioengineered embryo-like artifacts "ethically problematic."

The council did say it might be possible to salvage stem cells from dead embryos -- who died while frozen at fertility clinics. Sometimes that happens because the human embryo has damaged cells, which couldn't be used.

Scientists liken the process of taking stem cells from such "deceased" frozen embryos to organ donation.

The second methods to receive support from the council involved taking stem cells from reprogrammed adult somatic cells, an idea that comes from the technique to clone animals.

When the nucleus from an adult cell is inserted into an unfertilized egg, the egg can make the nucleus return to an "embryonic state," according to scientists. The council suggested more research on how and why this happens.

Not everyone agreed with the consensus.

Michael Gazzaniga, a professor of neurology at Dartmouth College, called the techniques "high-risk gambles" that evaded the question of whether embryonic stem cell research should be conducted.

Janet Rowley, a cell biologist at the University of Chicago, said she saw nothing wrong with destroying human embryos from fertility clinics for research.

Pro-life advocates reacted cautiously to the proposals, but Sean Tipton, a spokesperson biotech groups that favor embryonic stem cell research, told Reuters that research destroying human life still holds the most promise and he said scientists were getting impatient and ready to do more such research.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Thursday that a vote on a bill to overturn President Bush's limits on taxpayer funding of the destructive research would oocur before the August recess. He indicated the vote would come "sooner rather than later," according to a Congressional Quarterly report.

Doctors Group Hails Adult Stem Cell Research Breakthroughs
Source: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; October 16, 2002

Rosemont, IL -- Speaking at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Orthopaedics Update 2002 Web conference, Joseph Iannotti, MD chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Department of Orthopaedic Surgery explained, "Adult stem cells have not only proven to be effective in bone healing today, they hold great promise for the future of orthopaedics - especially in the areas of reconstructing all types of tissues, as well as improving the healing of diseased tissues."

A stem cell can be thought of as a blank slate with the ability to become any type of cell to form skin, bones, organs or other body parts. What makes a person alive is the continuous regeneration of these cells. Adult stem cells, already present in the human body, differ from embryonic stem cells in that they are derived from living bone, tissue, muscle and fat and not from an embryo.

Dr. Iannotti explained that mesenchymal stem cells are the type of cells that depending on the maturation process can become bone, cartilage, muscle, marrow, tendon/ligament and connective tissue. These cells are harvested from bone marrow in the pelvis via a syringe. Approximately 100 milliliters of bone marrow fluid when processed will yield 1 tablespoon containing 800 million cells of which 40,000 are mesanchymal stem cells.

"Stem cell therapy can be especially effective when there is a non-union situation," said Iannotti. "For example, a young man whose leg had still not healed fully after a year of treatment showed vast improvement just 3 months after undergoing an adult stem cell therapy."

In addition to non-unions (bone fractures that do not heal), adult stem cells are currently being used to treat a variety of clinical conditions including large segmental defects, bone fractures or wounds that have severe scarring, infections, or avascular tissue with a poor blood supply, and the effects of irradiation and chemotherapy.

Recent data analysis shows that in more than 700 patients who underwent a stem cell harvesting procedure from the pelvis, there was no complaint of pain and only 2 bruises. This is of great benefit to the patient because it reduces the risk of morbidity associated with complications that may arise in the harvesting of autogenous cancellous
bone from other areas of the patient's body. Other benefits to the patient of utilizing a stem cell procedure include minimal scarring and decreased blood loss.

Research on human adult stem cells suggests great potential for use in the development of tissue and cartilage regeneration especially in the area of transplantation. Isolating adult stem cells from a patient, directing their specialization and then transplanting them back into the patient would be extremely advantageous because it is unlikely that the cells would be rejected. Research is currently underway towards achieving this goal. Once accomplished it will be a true scientific breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine.

An orthopaedic surgeon is a physician with extensive training in the diagnosis and nonsurgical as well as surgical treatment of the musculoskeletal system, including bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles and nerves.

[Editorial by C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D., senior fellow of the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and editor of the journal Ethics & Medicine: An International Perspective on Bioethics.]

Words are powerful tools. They can be used as a shield or a weapon. They have incited revolutions, shaped nations, and thrilled readers. They are the stuff of which most human communication is made. Nowhere is this more evident than in the latest development in human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research.

Scientists at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) announced July 12 that they have begun experiments to clone human embryos to harvest their stem cells. Not only does this signal that the clone age has arrived on American soil, but ACT's use of euphemisms to describe their research is simply remarkable.

According to linguists Keith Allan and Kate Burridge, in their volume, "Euphemism & Dysphemism," "a euphemism is used as an alternative to a dispreferred expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either one's own face or, through giving offense, that of the audience, or of some third party." In other words, a euphemism is a word game used to take the sting out of a practice or behavior we would otherwise find offensive or reprehensible.

Apparently, Advanced Cell Technologies are not only about inventing new procedures, but about inventing new words euphemisms to be exact. ACT is calling the subjects of their research "embryos or embryo-like entities." What is an "embryo-like entity"? Does it differ biologically from a human embryo? No. It's a euphemism. According to an article by Rick Weiss in The Washington Post: "The group debated at length whether there needs to be a new term developed for the embryo-like entity created by cloning. Some believe that since it is not produced by fertilization and is not going to be allowed to develop into a fetus, it would be useful to call the cells something less inflammatory than an embryo."

Something less inflammatory than an embryo? The term "embryo" is hardly inflammatory. What they are planning to do to the embryo is what they are trying to hide by calling him or her an "embryolike entity." Ronald Green, chair of the company's ethics advisory board, said, "We're not trying to evade anything here. . . . But think about it. There was a time when a 'mother' was the genetic mother, the gestational mother, and the birth mother. But now technology like surrogate motherhood is separating out those things that used to go together. The same is true for what we've been calling the 'embryo.' "

Let's see. If we follow that logic, we should call surrogate mothers, "mother-like entities" or "womblike gestational sites." This is worse than sophistry: It is linguistic evil.

We've been down this road before, and it smells like the smoke of burning human flesh. In fact, during World War II, the Nazi doctors became extremely adept at inventing euphemisms to disguise, even sometimes from themselves, the horrors they were perpetrating against humanity. To justify Operation T-4, a euthanasia campaign that would make the Dutch blush, they used words like "mercy killing," "liberation," and "life not worthy of living" to describe the mass killing of mentally retarded persons and the disabled. Some of the doctors even called Jews "human ballast" in order to justify their destruction. Robert Lifton calls this "detoxifying language," language meant to sanitize a practice which was so repugnant that, to call it what it was would cause the world to vomit collectively.

And so we did. When the Americans liberated Nazi Germany and the abuses were made known, we all understood the corrosive power of euphemisms.

It matters what ACT calls its research subjects. It matters because the world needs to know exactly what they ACT is up to in its labs. If the people at ACT are doing destructive human embryo research, they should have the courage to admit it and not hide behind language. If they are cloning human beings, members of the species Homo sapiens, they should own up to it rather than cloaking their experiments in language invented to lull society to sleep. If they are combining human DNA with animal DNA to create chimeras (human-animal hybrids), they should tell us in no uncertain terms.

Decisions about the morality of human embryo research and human cloning are not for a few scientific elitists to make. This is about the future of humanity as we know it. This is about our children being used as research subjects. This is about our human progeny being used as guinea pigs in someone's big summer science project.

The stakes are gargantuan, and together we have to decide how we will regulate this kind of research. Just because ACT does not receive government funds doesn't mean its research cannot be regulated effectively. It can still be made illegal, just as it is illegal for you and me as public citizens to carry a little plutonium in our briefcase. And even if recourse to legislation is not the way to go, the American public has powerful ways of repudiating practices it finds abhorrent.

But first, we have to make it clear that though they hide behind whatever linguistic devices they choose, we know exactly what ACT and their like are up to. A rose by any other name is still a rose. And a human embryo is a person is a tiny baby, not an "embryo-like entity."

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- South Korean and British scientists made a major announcement Thursday about the successful cloning of a human embryo and the creation of patient-specific embryonic stem cells. However, the cells are still nowhere close to being able to help treat diseases.

South Korean scientists say they have used human cloning to make made embryonic stem cells able to match an individual patient. The discovery could possibly help the cells overcome a longtime problem plaguing their feasibility as a development for cures -- rejection issues.

While adult stem cells have already produced dozens of treatments and cures, even the new embryonic stem cells are far away from ever being useful.

The new embryonic stem cells display some of the characteristics of the diseases they are intended to cure. Dr. Gerald Schatten, a University of Pittsburgh scientist who worked with the South Korean team, admitted that they may will likely need to be manipulated further before they could be used.

Though the new cells don't rely on mouse feeder cells to grow, since they are obtained from cloned humans, they still had animal cell components injected into them.

"Scientists must also find a way to remove the remaining animal components from the laboratory procedures," they said in a report on their discovery scheduled to be printed in the journal Science on Friday.

Even leading South Korean research Hwang Woo-suk admitted "we have to open so many doors before human trials.''

Pro-life groups condemned the new research because it involves cloning and killing human beings.

Julia Millington, of the ProLife Alliance said "Cloning for research purposes, which involves the manufacture of human embryos destined for experimentation and subsequent destruction, is profoundly unethical."

"The manufacture and destruction of one cloned embryo is one too many, regardless of the number of eggs that are required," she told the BBC. "Experimentation upon human life at any stage of development has no place in a civilized society."

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Poll Shows 70% Oppose Stem Cell Research That Kills Unborn Children
Source: National Conference of Catholic Bishops; June 8, 2001

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: The findings of the poll described below will be discussed at a press conference sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) and by Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, on Friday June 8 at 10 a.m., outside the U.S. Capitol at the House Triangle. Congressman Smith will announce the introduction of the Responsible Stem Cell Research Act of 2001, legislation to authorize $30 million for ethically non-controversial adult stem cell research and establish a stem cell bank at the National Institutes for Health. What follows is a June 8 press release from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.]

Washington, DC -- As two very different bills are introduced in the House of Representatives this week on stem cell research, a new poll commissioned by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops shows that Americans strongly prefer one approach over the other.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has introduced the "Stem Cell Research Act of 2001" (H.R. 2059) to change the law so federal funds can be used to destroy human embryos for their stem cells. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has introduced the "Responsible Stem Cell Research Act of 2001" to increase funding for stem cell research that does not require destruction of human life at any stage.

Questions about these two approaches to stem cell research were included in a multi-issue survey conducted by International Communications Research (ICR), a national polling firm headquartered in Media, Pennsylvania. A weighted sample of over a thousand American adults was surveyed by telephone between June 1 and June 5 to obtain the results.

The poll suggests that Americans oppose federal funding of stem cell research that requires destroying human embryos, by a factor of almost three to one (70% to 24%). Asked to choose between funding all stem cell research (both adult and embryonic), and funding only adult stem cell research and similar alternatives to see if there is no need to destroy embryos for research, Americans prefer the latter approach by an even wider margin (67% to 18%).

"Polls sponsored by groups promoting destructive embryo research claim to show broad support for their agenda," says Richard Doerflinger, Associate Director for Policy Development at the NCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. "They create this illusion by using what political campaigns call 'push polls' -- presenting false and misleading claims as though they are fact, to push the respondent to a favorable answer. They even avoid mentioning the destruction of human embryos, asking only if people support the use of stem cells 'that come from excess fertilized eggs.' Perhaps they use this scientifically absurd euphemism out of fear that many Americans recognize a 'human embryo' as a human life."

"Even the Clinton Administration's guidelines for embryonic stem cell research insist that parents donating embryos for this research must be told that the embryos will not survive the harvesting process," said Mr. Doerflinger. "Federal officials recognized that failing to mention this important fact would violate parents' right to informed consent. Why do some advocacy groups want to deny Americans that right of informed consent when they conduct polls?"

The results of the new ICR survey are as follows:

1. Stem cells are the basic cells from which all of a person's tissues and organs develop. Congress is considering whether to provide federal funding for experiments using stem cells from human embryos. The live embryos would be destroyed in their first week of development to obtain these cells. Do you support or oppose using your federal tax dollars for such experiments?

Support 23.9%
Oppose 69.9%
Don't know 4.8%
Refused 1.3%

2. Stem cells for research can be obtained by destroying human embryos. They can also be obtained from adults, from placentas left over from live births, and in other ways that do no harm to the donor. Scientists disagree on which source may end up being most successful in treating diseases. How would you prefer your tax dollars to be used this year for stem cell research?

(Options rotated)

Supporting all methods, including those that require destroying human
embryos, to see which will be most successful - 17.6%

or

Supporting research using adult stem cells and other alternatives, to see
if there is no need to destroy human embryos for research. - 66.8%

Neither (volunteered) - 8.6%
Don't know - 6.3%
Refused - 0.7%

The survey of 1013 adult Americans has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Hundreds of scientists who back embryonic stem cell research are meeting in California to discuss the current state of the controversial research are admitting they've not made much progress and losing millions in trying to perfect it.

"Many of the technologies we hyped to the general public haven't worked yet,'' Celgene President Alan Lewis said, according to an AP story.

James Thomson, the Wisconsin biologist who was the first to isolate embryonic stem cells also admits they have been oversold.

He told MSBNC that he understands the technology still has a long way to go and that embryonic stem cells are not being used in any human clinical trials yet.

"I'm very hopeful that there will be some transplantation applications for this technology, but they're going to be very challenging," he told MSNBC. "And it's been so hyped in the press that people expect it to come the day after tomorrow."

Thomson conceded that embryonic stem cell cures may not be available until "ten to twenty years from now."

Meanwhile, Lewis also pointed out that venture capitalists, the source of much of the funding of stem cell research companies, "are very cautious'' about investing because of the limited success and lack of future prospects.

That's true for William Haseltine, CEO of Human Genome Sciences, a leading advocate of embryonic stem cell research. He says results are decades away and his company is not spending money on the unproven embryonic cells.

“The routine utilization of human embryonic stem cells for medicine is 20 to 30 years hence," Haseltine admits.

"The timeline to commercialization is so long that I simply would not invest," Haseltine added.

As a result, leading embryonic stem cell research firms are losing money.

Geron, the California-based biotech firm has put over $100 million into embryonic stem cell research and, because it has little to show for the investment, lost $80 million last year.

Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts company that was one of the first to claim to have cloned a human embryo, is running into significant financial troubles and, according to AP, is having problems finding enough eggs from women for research.

"There have been companies that have gone into stem cells, but nobody's made any money," researcher Thomson admitted.

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Senate committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would promote the use of adult stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood. The bill is the pro-life alternative to a measure seeking to use taxpayer funds to pay for embryonic stem cell research.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) committee backed S. 1317 on a voice vote.

The measure encourages the collection of umbilical cord blood and establishes a national database to help doctors and scientists access the stem cells in it for research.

The committee combined the original Senate bill (S. 681) dealing with cord blood research with a more expansive House bill that also promotes adult stem cells from bone marrow. The House approved its measure, HR 2520, on a 434-1 vote in May.

At the same time, the House signed off on legislation that would use taxpayer funds to pay for unproven embryonic stem cell research. The Senate is expected to take up that bill later this summer.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who also backs embryonic stem cell research, said Senate leaders have worked out a final version of the adult stem cell bill with House officials. He told Congressional Quarterly he expected the House to approve it once the Senate votes on the bill.

President Bush opposes using taxpayer funds for any new embryonic stem cell research and prefers the adult stem cell legislation.

"Cord-blood stem cells, collected from the placenta and umbilical cord after birth without doing harm to mother or child, have been used in the treatment of thousands of patients suffering from more than 60 different diseases," President Bush said in a statement supporting the measure.

Phil Coelho is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Thermogenesis Corp., which provides cord blood stem cell processing and cryopreservation systems used by major cord blood stem cell banks.

He says that adult stem cells have "been used clinically about 30,000 times."

Cord blood cells "have some dramatic advantages," Coelho says.

"[T]hey can become several -- and perhaps all -- the different tissue types; they involve no donor risks; they have the capacity for many cell divisions; and they cause less graft versus host disease," he explained.

THE CONFERENCE:

stem cell research:

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Juvenile diabetes

Adult Pancreatic Islet Cells

Embryonic Stem Cells

Spinal cord injury

Adult Immune-System Cells

Embryonic Stem Cells

Immune deficiency

Adult Bone Marrow Stem Cells

Embryonic Stem Cells

Corneal repair

Adult Corneal Stem Cells

Embryonic Stem Cells