On September 14, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education held a hearing to discuss the patient’s perspective on stem cell research. The subcommittee heard testimony in support of human embryonic stem cell research from actors Michael J. Fox, Gina Gershon, and Mary Tyler Moore.
Additionally, Richard Hynes of the American Society for Cell Biology detailed the importance of supporting all forms of stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research. “Embryonic stem cells will allow the creation of new, healthy tissue to replace damaged or dead tissue, such as bone marrow for the treatment of cancers, sickle cell anemia and thalassemis; pancreatic cells for the treatment of diabetes, and neuronal cells for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and various brain and spinal cord injuries and disorders. The prospects offered by this research are analogous to, but will likely far surpass, the benefits realized by organ transplantation over recent decades,” he said.
Darwin Prockop of the Tulane University Medical Center discussed the work on adult stem cells currently underway at Tulane. “Our Tulane Center for Gene Therapy is carrying out research on a special class of adult stem cells that we think can potentially be used for the treatment of a number of devastating diseases….Therefore, if our therapies work, we will not need fetal tissues nor will we need to introduce foreign cells into a patient.” However, he added: “We are not there yet….In my opinion, it would be a serious mistake to stop all research on human embryonic cells and tissues because of the exciting discoveries my laboratory and others have recently made about adult stem cells.”
