Researchers may abandon stem cell lines

Written byBob Grant

| 1 min read

Leading US research institutions may stop studying several federally-fundable linkurl:embryonic stem cell;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54749/ lines due to potential ethical problems surrounding the creation of the lines. As linkurl:reported;http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/07/3996n.htm by __The Chronicle of Higher Education__ today (July 28), Stanford and Johns Hopkins Universities, and the linkurl:California Institute for Regenerative Medicine;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/52856/ (CIRM) are considering halting or have halted research on five of the 21 human stem cell lines linkurl:approved;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/12948/ to receive federal funding. University of Wisconsin bioethicist linkurl:Robert Streiffer;http://philosophy.wisc.edu/streiffer/ called the five lines into question in an linkurl:article;http://philosophy.wisc.edu/streiffer/PapersFolder/Streiffer%20-%202008%20Informed%20Consent%20and%20Federal%20Funding%20of%20SC%20Research.pdf he wrote in the May-June issue of the __Hastings Center Report__. In the article, Streiffer wrote that some embryonic stem cell donors were improperly informed before donating their cells. For example, Streiffer wrote that in at least one case, the consent forms that donors signed "states that the project in which the embryo donors were participating was limited to developing a technique for longer-term cultivation of embryonic cells, and that after the study was completed all the cells would be destroyed." In light of the ethical problems, Strieffer called for the Bush Administration's restrictions on stem cell research funding to be overturned. According to __The Chronicle__ story, citing a report by the Center for American Progress, expert panels at Johns Hopkins and Stanford have already decided to stop research on the five contested cell lines, but officials at Stanford told __The Chronicle__ that the report was "inaccurate" and that the no final decision has yet been made. A spokesman from CIRM told __The Chronicle__ that the institute is deciding whether or not to refer the issue to its ethics board.

Meet the Author

Bob Grant

From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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