Connecticut stem cell grants – Directed to adult or embryonic stem cells?

I’m not comfortable with the state using tax money to fund medical research, but it is what it is. That said, why doesn’t The Hartford Courant – or the state – let us know if the $9.8 million in grant money spread out to 23 different research projects will be used for adult or embryonic stem cell* research? There is a big difference.

From the Courant.

The latest round of state funding for stem cell research — totaling $9.8 million — will go to 23 research projects, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s office announced Thursday.

The Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee chose the recipients from among 109 applicants.

The largest award, $1.49 million, went to Janice Naegele at Wesleyan University for a project titled “HESC-Derived GABAergic Neurons for Epilepsy Therapy,” followed by $1.13 million to Ren-He Xu at ImStem Biotechnology for “Developing a Potential Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis using hESC-derived MSCs.”

Supposedly we have state employees who know which applicants will provide the medical field the most bang for the taxpayer dollar, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Anyway, did you know …

  • The Catholic Church is completely supportive of stem cell research. This is not a new position. But the church – unlike my first sentence in this paragraph and the Courant’s article – makes it clear they support adult stem cell research. They are against embryonic stem cell research because it involves the destruction of human embryos.
  • When it comes to embryonic stem cells, the phrases could be, might provide, someday could, raises the possibility, and one day come up frequently in research documentation for the simple fact not one successful cure or treatment has been derived from embryonic stem cell research.
  • Lots of treatments are available using adult stem cells and many are very promising.

That information alone is just a small portion of this discussion. The entire concept is so complex, researchers are being advised to “dumb down” their presentations, simplify their approach and completely avoid the entire embryonic verses adult stem cell discussion. The low-information voters out there should only hear about the awesome potential!! (Yes, I used the dreaded double-exclamation point.)

By the way, I’m willing to bet most people would answer “heck no” if you asked the simplified question “Does the Catholic Church support stem cell research?”

From the San Francisco Gate.

The best way to talk about stem cells may be to not talk about stem cells.

Instead, scientists are probably better off glossing over the details and avoiding terms like “embryonic” and “pluripotent” stem cells, and focusing instead on what they’re trying to accomplish and who they hope to help someday.

Stem cells, after all, are complicated stuff.

Yes, it is complicated, but why not just include my three bits of information in bullet format above? That should be pretty easy to understand right? A primer if you will.

When Alan Trounson, president of the stem cell agency, talks about the field, he skips discussing the difference between embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.

“That language is quite foreign to most people, and they often find it boring,” he said. Instead, “finding an interesting anchor is the most important thing.”

That may mean pulling on people’s heartstrings and talking about devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s, neither of which has a cure, and both of which are being heavily studied by stem-cell scientists. Trounson and other stem cells experts draw people into their research by talking about real-life implications first, and the lab work later.

Wow. My emphasis is in bold above. Years ago people complained about the 30-second sound bite. We were not well-informed on topics because most people would loose interest in stuff – like politics – quickly. News stories had to be short and to the point or people would turn away from the TV news. Now teenagers, young adults and a lot of adults get their news from a small unsourced graphic – a photo with text on it – they see on Facebook. You think I’m kidding?

From the National Institute of Health’s website. Note the government won’t answer the question about embryonic stem cells.

Have human embryonic stem cells been used successfully to treat any human diseases yet?
Stem cell research offers hope for treating many human diseases. Click here to read a description of the current status of stem cells and human disease therapies.

For 14 years researchers have been working with embryonic stem cells, and some of the researcher involving human trials in the United States have stopped. There are only two human trials involving embryonic stem cells that I can find in the US, but there seems to be plenty of people actively being treated with adult stem cells.

I did find some information about embryonic stem cell research in Europe. The PISCES study Phase 1 was exclusively designed to check to see if different levels of embryonic stem cell therapy was safe, but that did not stop the University of Glasglow from claiming a few stroke patients showed signs of improvement in a press release that does not equate to a peer-reviewed complete study. Hint … they need funding to continue the research and have to sell the potential.

I’m not a scientist and have no clue about how stem cells work. What I’ve provided here is pretty basic information that the media, researchers and the government seem to gloss over; especially the part about destroying human embryos. Why do you think that is?

I’m pretty certain none of the money from the state is being used for embryonic stem cell human trials, but I’m not sure if state dollars are being used for research on actual embryonic stem cells.

Posted in ,

Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

2 Comments

  1. once was on June 15, 2013 at 10:44 am

    During the brief debate on CT’s stem cell research bill, one of the compelling?arguments? made by in opposition to embryonic stem cell research was the rejection of foreign cells by the recipient and the cost of life long anti rejection medications.???Adult stem cell research would allow ?science to find a way to use cells?from one’s own body which?would?more likely be successful and without the added fear of rejection.??I believe that their is a legislator in CT who actually went out of state for medical treatment which was very successful using?his own stem cells.?



  2. DuffTerrall on June 17, 2013 at 10:36 pm

    hESC is an abbreviation for Human Embryonic Stem Cells, so that would seem to say that they’re using the money on ESCs. I may be wrong, though, so biologists please audit this.
    Also, state of CT has a page that not only gives the amount but also the projects.?http://www.ct.gov/dph/cwp/view.asp?Q=526430&A=4386



square-stem-cells

The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.