Senator Rick Santorum And Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett And Phil Gingrey Host Embryonic Stem Cell Research Briefing

Main Category: Stem Cell Research
Also Included In: Stem Cell Research
Article Date: 11 Apr 2006 - 0:00 PDT

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On April 5, 2006, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA) hosted an Embryonic Stem Cell Research briefing for Congressional staff. The briefing presented details about four proposed techniques for deriving embryonic stem cell lines without harming embryos that were outlined in The President's Council on Bioethics "White Paper" released in May 2005. Congressman Bartlett, who has a Masters and a Doctorate in Human Physiology, and Dr. Donald Landry of Columbia University, Dr. William Hurlbut of Stanford University, and Father Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., Ph.D. of Providence College presented information about the techniques. Photo: L-R Dr. Landry, Dr. Hurlbut, Father Austriaco and Congressman Bartlett.

Contrary to many reports, there are currently no limitations on the private sector's ability to support and fund embryonic stem cell research. The use of federal dollars has been more limited as this research has required the destruction of human embryos, a very real ethical concern to many Americans. The briefing provided information about how the federal government could take a non-controversial route of federally funding research on ways to derive stem cells with embryonic-like qualities without harming or destroying human embryos, thus allowing for research to move forward in a way everyone agrees is ethical.

The President's Council on Bioethics in its May 2005 White Paper referred to one technique first proposed by Congressman Bartlett in its examination of four alternative approaches to derive embryonic stem cell lines for research without harming embryos bioethics.gov/reports/white_paper/index.html. The report gave impetus to drafting legislation that could be signed into law. Dr. Bartlett sought and obtained technical assistance from the administration to ensure his legislation would be consistent with the President's support for embryonic stem cell research without harming embryos.

Intensive and extensive consultations with other key supporters of a law to permit federal funding of stem cell research without harming human embryos resulted in the consensus language in H.R. 3144 that was introduced on June 30, 2005. H.R. 3144 would authorize $15 million for research in animals to develop alternative techniques to derive embryonic stem cell lines without harming embryos. Its cosponsors include House Majority Whip Roy Blunt and Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce. U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician who has delivered nearly 4,000 babies and successfully treated his patients with ethical stem cell therapies, introduced companion legislation, S. 1557.

Dr. Bartlett said, "The briefing provided information about four exciting avenues of research that would comply with the President's principles and goals of pursuing embryonic stem cell research without harming or destroying embryos. These research techniques demonstrate that we don't have to choose between helping live patients and protecting the life and dignity of embryos. This is not a Hobson's choice. We can do both. American should lead the world by doing both. The Castle-DeGette approach in Great Britain has reportedly already led to the destruction of 200,000 human embryos."

"A commitment to curing disease, promoting scientific progress, and respect for life are not mutually exclusive. This briefing highlighted potential examples of ethical ways to derive embryonic-like stem cells without harming embryos," said Senator Santorum. "I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about these proposed techniques and I am hopeful that the government will focus its resources in this more ethical direction."

Congressman Phil Gingrey, M.D. commented, "The beauty of stem cell research is that it holds the potential to find treatments that can save lives. But the power of this research is discredited if we are saying it is okay to destroy life in the process. As a pro-life OBGYN, I know that life is held in every embryo. This briefing was an exciting look into successful ways we can conduct stem cell research without sacrificing life for medicine."

Dr. Bartlett earned both his Master's and Ph.D. in Human Physiology from the University of Maryland. He engaged in basic and applied research at several institutions including the National Institutes of Health, holds 20 patents and had more than 100 papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In 1999, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) awarded Dr. Bartlett its Jeffries Aerospace Medicine and Life Sciences Research Award outstanding career research accomplishments in aerospace medicine and space life sciences.

Dr. Bartlett discussed the potential for a technique derived from Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PIGD) that has reportedly resulted in the birth of 2,000 healthy children worldwide. Parents who choose in vitro fertilization (IVF) and PIGD and further choose to establish a repair kit to preserve cells taken from their embryos would have the option of donating any surplus cells from the repair kit for embryonic stem cell research.

Dr. Donald W. Landry, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Landry published a seminal paper "Embryonic Death and the Creation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells" in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that advanced a proposal to harvest live embryonic cells from IVF embryos that have died despite best efforts. His proposal, authored with Dr. Howard Zucker of Columbia, was also featured in the Council's White Paper of May 2005.

Dr. Landry said, "Whereas many may disagree about when a new life begins, there is a general agreement about when it ends-for us it ends when the diagnosis of brain death is made. But what about the death of a human life at a stage of development before the brain has formed? We have proposed an approach for diagnosing the death of human embryos that is analogous to that for diagnosing brain death. These cells from dead IVF embryos are analogous to organs that might be donated from a deceased person and in the proper environment such cells can grow and make specialized tissues." Application of the accepted ethical framework for essential organ donation to the harvesting of cells from dead embryos can advance biomedical research without the ethical problem of embryo destruction.

Dr. William Hurlbut is a physician and a Consulting Professor in the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford. He is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and the author of Altered Nuclear Transfer, one of the four proposals for a solution to our stem cell impasse discussed in the Council's White Paper. Altered Nuclear Transfer would employ the basic technology of nuclear transfer (SCNT) but with an alteration such that no embryo is created, yet pluripotent stem cells (the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells) are produced. The scientific feasibility of this technique has been established in mouse models by stem cell biologist Rudolf Jaenisch at MIT. Recent advances in developmental biology suggest promising prospects for this approach and it has received wide support among leading moral philosophers and religious authorities.

Dr. Hurlbut is a strong proponent of legislation to fund these proposals and in a Senate hearing last July described them as providing "one small island of unity in a sea of controversy." At the briefing Dr. Hurlbut said, "Approaches, such as these, that open scientific progress while preserving the most fundamental moral principles, are in the best spirit of positive pluralism and would be a triumph for our nation as a whole."

Father Austriaco is an Assistant Professor of Biology and an Adjunct Instructor of Theology at Providence College in Rhode Island as well as a Consultant on the Committee on Science and Human Values for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Fr. Austriaco said, "Another alternative to destructive embryo research involves efforts to reprogram adult somatic cells so that they will have the properties of embryonic stem cells. Three approaches are currently being explored including cell fusion between adult cells and embryonic stem cells, cell fusion between adult cells and embryonic stem cells lacking their own nuclei, and the genetic engineering of adult cells so that they contain key reprogramming genes that give them the properties of embryonic stem cells. Since the President's Council on Bioethics published its white paper last May, a lot of progress has been made in making its proposals a reality. Just last week, a scientist reported that his lab has identified four 'reprogramming' factors that could be used to genetically engineer and transform mouse adult cells into pluripotent stem cells that have the properties of embryonic stem cells. If this finding applies to human beings, we may be able to obtain patient-specific pluripotent stem cells directly, without using either human eggs or human embryos."

http://www.bartlett.house.gov