California voters fund stem cell research

The recent passage of a California bill could change the face of embryonic stem cell research in the United States, putting the state at the forefront of a field restricted by federal policy.

On Nov. 2, voters in California passed Proposition 71, providing $3 billion in grants or loans for stem cell research during the next 10 years.

One of the biggest challenges presented by the proposition is issuing the funds.

"The wisdom comes in trying to use the money in as direct of a way as it was intended to be used," said Thomas Huff, professor of life sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University.

To get the money to the researchers, a newly appointed governing board will decide who will receive funding, said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the California Department of Finance.

Palmer also said the recipients of funds must be public universities or nonprofit organizations located in California and must match at least 20 percent of the funds received.

The funds, which come in at an unprecedented amount for a state, provide for the kind of funding the federal government usually allows, Huff said.

The funding also starkly changes the landscape of embryonic stem cell research.

"In the prior scenario, before Proposition 71 passed, there was not a robust way of funding embryonic stem cell research," Huff said.

Darwin Prockop, director of the Center for Gene Therapy at Tulane University, said that before the funding was passed, embryonic stem cells had to be researched in separate and alternatively funded laboratories. Researchers could not receive money from the National Institutes of Health.

Prockop said academic research in particular was hindered by this system.

Not only does the proposition show a departure from the past, it also could shift the geographical focus of stem cell research.

"The benefits for California are that scientists interested in working with embryonic stem cells will flock there," Prockop said. He added that, in the end, companies will follow the scientists as well.

With the funding, scientists hope to lay the ground work for embryonic stem cell research.

"What we need to have first is a valid, head-to-head comparison of different kinds of stem cells," Huff said.

Prockop called for a similar kind of headway. "We don't fully know (about the different types of stem cells). They're very similar in many ways, but there are some striking differences."

In addition to new funding, Proposition 71 refreshes old questions about the morality of embryonic stem cell research.

Huff said those concerned about embryonic stem cell research fall into two categories -- people concerned with the sanctity of the embryo and those concerned with the direction in which the science might be heading.

"People feel that if you're using an embryo for anything, you're killing a person," Prockop said.

But Prockop said this is not the case. Under laws in place for fertility clinics, there still are 290,000 frozen embryos.

"There's nothing to do with them but freeze them or use them for research," Prockop said.

But Huff provides another explanation for those with such concerns. "They're concerned with the moral status of the embryo and its destruction (during the research process)."

He said the other risk is that stem cell research might move into controversial branches of science --like eugenics.

Regardless, Huff said some discussion needs to take place.

"We are faced with this challenge where the technology is moving so fast that all the communities that need to talk about it haven't."

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.