Stanford Report, February 16, 2005

Massachusetts debates stem cells

BY MICHELLE L. BRANDT

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shook up the scientific community last week when he announced his moral objections to a technique used to create new human stem cell lines. Romney's call for state lawmakers to criminalize this type of work follows Harvard's launch last year of a major stem cell institute, where researchers hope to perform this procedure.

"This has overall tragic consequences for the state and the nation, and for patients everywhere," Irving Weissman, MD, director of Stanford's stem cell institute, commented. "This could have a very unfortunate effect nationwide, leading other governors to follow suit and precipitating a national division we do not need."

Romney's challenge to the Harvard effort underscores how politically sensitive the issue remains even after Californians in November resoundingly approved Proposition 71, providing $3 billion in state funds over the next 10 years for such research. And the governor's proposal raises questions over whether Massachusetts and other states will bankroll the research that the Bush administration has declined to support.

Federal policy established in 2001 limits federal funding of this research to 19 stem cell colonies, or lines. Most scientists believe that more funding—and more stem cell lines—are needed in order to conduct meaningful research, and supporters of stem cell research had been counting on Harvard adding its resources to the effort.

But in a Feb. 8 interview with the New York Times, Romney voiced objections to Harvard's plans. He said he would oppose legislation that would allow somatic cell nuclear transfer, a technique that involves inserting genetic material from a body cell into an egg cell and stimulating the egg cell to divide. Although he supports the use of frozen human embryos in fertility clinics for research, he said he plans to propose legislation that imposes penalties on researchers who create embryos specifically for scientific experimentation.

"I believe that the practice of cloning human embryos for research or reproduction crosses the boundary of ethics," Romney explained in a letter to the state Sen. President Robert Travaglini.

Romney's announcement came one day after Travaglini had introduced a bill that would promote stem cell research in the state and just days after Douglas Melton, PhD, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, urged lawmakers to express their support of this area of research. Melton, who hopes to create new human stem cell lines using nuclear transfer, said not doing so would drive scientists there to flee to California.

In a statement issued last week, Lawrence Summers, PhD, president of Harvard University, said: "Stem cell research holds important potential to transform the understanding of human diseases and to illuminate possible treatments and cures. We take seriously the ethical issues involved … and believe that it is vitally important to carefully proceed with such research."