Stem cell bill override turns talk to research support

Democratic leaders in the state House and Senate, fresh off a robust override of Governor Mitt Romney's veto of a bill encouraging human embryonic stem cell research, said yesterday that they will take up a proposal within months to spend taxpayer dollars to foster such science.

Both Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said they would push a legislative spending package designed to make the Bay State more welcoming to the stem cell research industry, which hopes to find cures for devastating diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in the coming decades.

But the two lawmakers refused to promise any follow-through on Travaglini's suggestion in March that the Legislature might earmark up to $100 million in stem cell-related research grants, infrastructure, and scholarship programs.

With support for a large appropriation unclear in the Legislature, both legislative leaders said they want to size up how private investors respond to the new Massachusetts stem cell law before committing taxpayer money.

''I don't think there's any immediate need for this discussion to occur tomorrow," said Travaglini, the East Boston Democrat who sponsored the bill and built the coalition that led to a 35-to-2 Senate vote yesterday to override the governor's veto. ''The overwhelming message I'm getting from the industry is and continues to be 'just authorize this type of research and send out a signal that the Commonwealth and the Legislature endorses this type of research.' "

For now, Travaglini said he was satisfied with overriding Romney's veto yesterday and clearing up an ambiguous legal situation for researchers.

Before the new law, scientists conducting embryonic stem cell research were required to seek the approval of their local district attorney. The new law ends that requirement, gives some regulatory powers to the state Department of Public Health, and bans cloning that results in a baby.

Earlier yesterday, the House overrode Romney's veto, 112 to 42.

DiMasi said in an interview afterward that he favored reducing the operating costs of stem cell researchers in Massachusetts by, for example, providing incentives to establish new business clusters west of Interstate 495, where real estate is generally less expensive than it is in the high-tech belt surrounding Boston.

He said he would also like to see the state expedite construction and environmental permitting for new research facilities.

But DiMasi said he was not prepared to pinpoint the amount of money the state should pump into the fledgling science or whether the money would be targeted at stem cell research firms or to the life sciences in general.

''I'd have to find out what kind of [private] investment is available out there, what's the climate and atmosphere for making that kind of investment before we make a determination as to whether we're going to spend state dollars," DiMasi said. ''It may not be necessary to stimulate that type of stem cell research development."

The Massachusetts bill that became a law yesterday removes legal ambiguity around human embryonic stem cell research, including the process of creating cloned embryos in order to harvest stem cells. That process is technically called somatic cell nuclear transfer, but is sometimes called therapeutic or research cloning.

The process of somatic cell nuclear transfer involves taking the nucleus of a cell such as skin, heart, or nerve cell and implanting it in a human egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed. The egg cell is then stimulated to grow in a laboratory dish for several days until it becomes a nearly featureless ball of about 200 cells known as a blastocyst. Researchers develop a new batch of embryonic stem cells from this blastocyst.

Romney, in vetoing the bill, said he could not sanction the creation of human embryos by scientists only to see them destroyed for research. He supports stem cell research using embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, declined to comment yesterday.

Opponents of the new law said yesterday they were bitterly disappointed that Massachusetts has passed a law that they believe will ultimately lead to the reproductive cloning of human beings, saying the law will create a slippery scientific slope.

The critics also hinted that their battle against the legislation is not over. Kristian M. Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said: ''We will continue to fight this as long as the state goes in this direction. Public money should not be used in an endeavor such as this. There are other options, but they are very serious options." Mineau declined to specify what options his group was considering.

Travaglini and other lawmakers have said they want to keep Massachusetts competitive with California, where voters last year approved a $3 billion, 10-year bond issue to lure stem cell researchers. Last week, the Connecticut state Senate approved a $100 million, 10-year investment in stem cell research that has broad support in the Connecticut House, which debated the measure yesterday, and governor's office.

Last week, the US House passed a bill that would allow federal funding for research on stem cells harvested from surplus embryos from fertility clinics, over the strenuous objections of President Bush.

The vote followed the announcement by South Korean researchers of a stunning advance in their ability to clone human embryonic stem cells matched to patients with diseases.

Charles Jennings, executive director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said yesterday that the scientific leaps occurring in South Korea were an example of what ''can be accomplished when researchers have the full support of their government politically and financially."

''We would very much like to catch up," he said. ''The fact that Massachusetts has now enacted this legislation makes it a far more attractive environment for private investment."

But Jennings cautioned that, with a paucity of investment into stem cell research by major pharmaceutical companies, which generally pump money into product-based science rather than early-stage advancements in cellular science, stem cell researchers could use any financial boost available from the state.

''Businesses have been slow to invest, so public funding would be very helpful in pushing this work forward," he said.

Several stem cell scientists said yesterday that while they were eager for funding, they would prefer that the federal government take the lead instead of the states.

''As a nation, I think we would be better off to see scientists in every state compete for federal funding, rather than a small group of researchers in California figure out how to divvy up their own large pot of gold," said David Shaywitz, a stem cell researcher at Harvard University.

The federal government has a well-established and widely respected process for reviewing and selecting the best grant applications. Scientists said replicating that on a state level could be cumbersome.

Gareth Cook of the Globe staff contributed to this report.