Wisconsin Stem Cell Now Issues and Legislation

Visit the webpage of the Stem Cell Action Coalition for national legislative updates.

The following summary is provided by Wisconsin Stem Cell Now:

A. Is embryonic stem cell research eligible for federal funding?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds research using adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells, stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood, and stem cells derived from non-human tissue.

The policy of the Bush administration was to limit the use of federal dollars to research using embryonic stem cell lines created prior to August 9, 2001. While at the time of this decision President Bush claimed that approximately 64 stem cell lines would be eligible for federal funding, it soon became apparent that far fewer stem cell lines were actually viable and available to researchers. During the Bush Administration, 21 stem cell lines derived from human embryos were available to researchers who wished to obtain federal funding of their work.

The National Stem Cell Bank was formed as the national repository of these embryonic stem cell lines (and also three iPS stem cell lines). Established by WiCell, a private, not-for-profit supporting organization to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the National Stem Cell Bank is funded through a federal grant.

Meanwhile, during the Bush Administration, researchers were continuing to produce hundreds if not thousands of new embryonic stem cell lines after August 9, 2001. In most cases, these post-2001 stem cell lines were derived with embryos that were created during the process of in vitro fertilization and that were subsequently donated to researchers in lieu of destruction. As laboratory techniques improved after 2001, and as researchers learned more about cell biology, the quality of these newer embryonic stem cell lines exceeded the quality of the lines created earlier.

During the Bush Administration, Congress twice passed legislation seeking to extend federal funding to these post-2001 embryonic stem cell lines. In both cases, President Bush vetoed the bill and supporters failed to override the veto.

Therefore, the Bush era restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research placed significant limits on researchers. The embryonic stem cell lines eligible to receive federal funding were of a lesser quality, and are therefore less useful to researchers. Research institutions that wished to conduct research using both pre-2001 and post-2001 embryonic stem cell lines had to either set up elaborate accounting systems or else construct completely separate facilities in order to assure that no federal dollars were indirectly used to support research outside of National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines. In addition, collaboration between institutions, which often leads to faster progress, became more difficult because different funding rules applied to different institutions.

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Wisconsin Stem Cell Now Issues and Legislation