"Remarkable" Stem Cell Research in Jeopardy
Former Duke med classmate Chuck Murry, co-director of U Washington's Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, was featured last night in an NBC Nightly News piece on embryonic cell research (video here). Veteran science reporter Robert Bazell said that what Murry has done, converting embryonic cells to beating cardiac tissue, is "remarkable."
But Murry's work and others' like it are now threatened by Monday's decision from a federal judge, Royce C. Lamberth, which blocks President Obama's 2009 order to expand funding for embryonic cell research. Lamberth ruled that the executive order conflicts with a legislated ban on using federal funds to destroy embryos (first contained in the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to the Balanced Budget Downpayment Act of 1996).
According to NIH director Francis Collins, by way of USA Today, the effects of Lamberth's ruling are chilling. A total of 167 grants, representing $149 million, will be frozen in the very near future. However, another 131 awarded grants, which are already "out the door," will not be affected until they're up for renewal next year.
Yesterday the US Department of Justice announced that it will appeal Lamberth's ruling. A profile of the judge, a Reagan appointee, is provided by the Washington Post.
The NYT and the WSJ are also, predictably, all over the story. According to the NYT, a Clinton* administration lawyer tried to circumvent the Dickey-Wicker Amendment in 1999, by arguing that federal money could support research on stem cell colonies, or lines, that had already been produced with private funding. (The idea being: use private funds to destroy the embryonic cell as it differentiates; then use federal funding to support research on the created stem-cell line.) The Bush administration adopted the lawyer's argument "with severe restrictions," and Obama attempted to lift the Bush restrictions last year.
* BTW, Clinton signed the Balanced Budget Downpayment Act of 1996 with the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.
P.S. Go Chuck.
