Stem cell research holds promise against many illnesses

The stem cell research that the governor wants to outlaw is what many scientists consider to be the most exciting new frontier of a field that promises insights into, and perhaps treatments for, diseases that have vexed physicians for ages.

In February of last year, a team in South Korea proved that it was possible to create human embryos, and embryonic stem cells, that have the DNA of a donor -- a process called cloning.

The procedure allows scientists to create embryonic stem cells, already powerful research tools, with the DNA of people with the disease they are interested in studying. Since that announcement, teams of scientists in Massachusetts and around the world have been gearing up to create these cloned embryos, which will allow them to understand a wide range of diseases, from juvenile diabetes to Parkinson's disease, in ways that were never possible.

Last year, Harvard University started a privately funded stem cell effort, and two teams of researchers affiliated with the university are hoping to create cloned human embryos, though neither has begun the experiments. Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester recently restarted its own effort to create cloned human embryos, all work that the governor now proposes to ban.

"It is mind-boggling," said Dr. Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology. "He is completely out of step with the scientific and medical community."

Governor Mitt Romney's letter describing his views, sent yesterday to the state's Senate president, also comes at a moment when local biologists are worried that the state could lose researchers and momentum.

In November, California voters passed a $3 billion measure to fund embryonic stem cell research, including the cloning work. Other states are considering their own measures.

Just this week, a team in the United Kingdom was given permission to do cloning work, the second such effort now underway in that country. Regardless of how the fight in the State House turns out, scientists said that Romney's remarks could make it more difficult to recruit talented scientists to the state, and suspected the new position reflected his political ambitions.

"If he wants to run for president in 2008, that is fine, but there is no reason to set back science in Massachusetts just to position himself on the national stage," said Lanza.

The governor's position represents a kind of middle ground, more liberal than that of President Bush, but more restrictive than a bill proposed by Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. But it also is part of a debate over an aspect of stem cell research that is even more difficult to understand, and more fraught with moral concerns, than current embryonic stem cell research.

Romney's policy also amounts to a direct challenge to Harvard. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, formed last April, is in part an attempt to provide a haven for researchers who want to do work that the federal government will not fund, but there would be no haven from changes in state law.

The opposition Romney outlined yesterday applies only to one type of stem cell research. Broadly speaking, scientists classify stem cells in two categories: adult stem cells, taken from bone marrow and other mature tissues, and embryonic stem cells, which are taken from human embryos several days after conception. While both types are valuable, embryonic stem cells have the ability to become any cell in the body. The governor said he fully supports adult stem cell work, which has not been controversial.

Current embryonic stem cell research has been controversial because it requires the destruction of human embryos, which critics charge is akin to taking human lives. Proponents have said that the embryos used, which would have been discarded after fertility treatments, are microscopic balls of a few hundred cells, and do not constitute human lives.

Under a Bush administration policy announced Aug. 9, 2001, researchers can only use federal funding on batches of embryonic stem cells created before that date. Romney said that scientists should be able to work with those embryonic stem cells, but also with embryonic stem cells created after that date, as long as they have been made from embryos generated for fertility clinics that otherwise would have been discarded. This represents a more liberal position than the president's.

A bill filed by Travaglini would declare the state's support for research using all kinds of embryonic stem cells. Both Romney and Travaglini support eliminating a regulation, which dates back decades, that effectively requires scientists to get the approval of county district attorneys before doing the manipulations to human embyros needed to create new batches of embryonic stem cells.

The key distinction the governor draws applies to embryonic stem cells created by cloning, a process also known as nuclear transfer. In nuclear transfer, the nucleus of a donor cell, which contains its genetic material, is transferred into an egg cell that has had its own nucleus taken away. Researchers then stimulate the egg to grow for several days. From this, scientists can then extract embryonic stem cells that have the genetic makeup of the donor.

Critics, Romney included, oppose the research because it means that scientists are creating human embryos specifically for research. The Travaglini bill, by contrast, would support this type of work, though it would prohibit the use of the technology to create cloned babies, a prohibition that virtually everyone on all sides of the debate agrees with.

Although human nuclear transfer has only been done successfully once, scientists see many ways the research could yield new insights. A team led by Douglas A. Melton at Harvard University has applied to the university for permission to pursue the research, in the hopes that it can create embryonic stem cells with the DNA of patients with conditions like juvenile diabetes. They hope to compare how cells from these embryonic stem cells compare to normal embryonic stem cells.

The university is conducting an ethical review of the proposal, according to provost Dr. Steven E. Hyman, and plans to continue that process.

Scientists also hope to create cloned embryonic stem cells that have the DNA of a patient, then correct any genetic defects and create replacement cells to heal the patient.

A team at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston, led by Dr. Leonard Zon and Dr. George Q. Daley, is particularly interested in studying diseases of the blood, such as sickle cell anemia and immune deficiencies. Zon said yesterday that the team is still applying for permission to do the work.

Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@globe.com.