Stem Cell Innovations PluriCells™ Provide Alternative to the Presidential Veto
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Stem Cell Innovations has said that it was disappointed by the Presidential veto of the Senate-approved bill to further fund embryonic stem (ES) cell research.
"We support expansion of the government's role in stem cell biology," said James H. Kelly, Ph.D., CEO of Stem Cell Innovations.
"NIH funding plays a central role in biological research in this country and it is crucial that activity in this field not be curtailed by the limited availability of cell lines."
Stem Cell Innovations PluriCells™ provide an alternative to ES cells and are available for broad-based government funding.
PluriCells™ are a type of pluripotent stem cell isolated from fetal tissue that have the ability to become all cell types of the body.
Because they are developed from fetal germ cells, not viable embryos, they are eligible to be used in any NIH-funded laboratory.
Stem cells derived from fetal germ cells were explicitly excluded from the Presidential ban by the Department of Health and Human Services guidance document of March 19, 2002, that laid out what type of stem cells could and could not be used in Federally funded research.
"While PluriCells™ are not yet widely available, we are actively pursuing arrangements to provide our cells to a number of university researchers throughout the world," Kelly said.
"We have previously presented data demonstrating our ability to grow PluriCells™ efficiently and reproducibly without feeder layers, and believe they can serve as an attractive alternative to embryonic stem cells in federally funded labs."
Following the Presidential veto, a number of prominent people in the field expressed their frustration with the outcome.
Robert Klein, chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, pointed out that the institute could "...get greater leverage out of our $3 billion if we were able to use federally funded facilities currently in place."
Stanford Nobel laureate Paul Berg said, "...it is not just the money. Equipment and laboratory space supported with federal dollars cannot be used for research with the newer stem-cell lines."
Irving Weissman, director of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, noted that, for example, analyzing the genes from new stem-cell lines can not be done at federally funded facilities on the campus.
The company pointed out that its PluriCells™ could address all these concerns and provide researchers with the opportunity to work with human pluripotent cells in their own labs.
