Embryo of light brightens frontier research

Visiting your friendly neighbourhood cell bank and ordering a 'lab-fresh' liver may not be the impossible dream it looked a while back, thanks to a South Korea-US partnership and the breakthrough in stem-cell research.

Stem cell research came under a cloud after religious and rightwing groups branded it unethical, because the cells are produced by creating embryos that get destroyed in the process. Even the Pope, on his visit to the US in 2001, had told President Bush that it was "as evil as infanticide".

The Bush administration imposed a ban on scientists using government funds for therapeutic cloning (the technique used to create new embryonic stem cells to grow new tissues for repair). In 2005, the US government even lent its support to an alliance that called on the United Nations to draw up a treaty banning all cloning, including therapeutic cloning.

Federal funds for embryonic stem cell research permit US scientists to carry out experiments on 64 stem cell cultures in research facilities and law allows private investors to fund research using therapeutic cloning.

Thanks to Robert Lanza, a scientist at the Massachusetts-based stem cell company, Advanced Cell Technology, scientists are once again hoping that the government will loosen its purse strings to allow extensive research in this field. Lanza has shown that embryonic stem cells can be created without therapeutic cloning.

In tests carried out on mice, the researchers let fertilised eggs divide for 2-3 days until they formed a ball of eight cells. They then removed one of these cells, and cultured it in a dish, where it multiplied into a mass of cells, of which some were embryonic stem cells.

To make them grow normally, the researchers then re-implanted the rest of the cells into 48 surrogate mothers (mice). They succeeded in developing foetuses in 29 of them - a rate, the scientists, said, comparable to those of in vitro fertility clinics.

The progress in research and the prospect of free flow of funds in the future also hold out fresh hope for scientists working on treatments for motor-neuron diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and even diabetes. The hope of this cutting-edge science saving millions is further bolstered by South Korean scientists agreeing to partner their American counterparts in creating new embryonic stem cells.

But KV Subramaniam, executive vice-president for Reliance Life Sciences, views this breakthrough with suspicion. "This work (of Robert

Lanza) is based on mouse models and may take time to translate to human models," he says.

In India, unhindered by the ethical and societal hurdles that have stymied US scientists, examples abound of how progress in research could grant a new lease of life to the likes of Abhishek Sharma.

Sharma had almost completely lost his vision because of a degenerative corneal disease, when Virender Sangwan, a surgeon of LV Prasad Institute, Hyderabad, decided on a stem-cell transplant. Stem cells taken from Sharma's parents - to lessen the chance of rejection - were sutured on his damaged eyes. The operation, which had been tried only on a handful of people here, was a success. There are bigger plans. India plans to set up a stem cell priority fund to support stem cell research for the treatment of diabetes, and heart/nerve diseases.

D Balasubramanian, the chairman of the task force on stem cell research of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) says they have a proposal ready for an "exclusive fund for stem cell research and…the government is keen to set up the stem cell priority fund".

The funding, so long reserved only for the DBT, will now be shared with the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Department of Science and Technology, and Defence Research and Development Organisation.

The DBT budget has also been increased from Rs400 crore last year to Rs500 crore this fiscal. A leading private company has also pledged Rs200 million for stem cell research.