BOSTON -- The nation's largest fertility clinic plans to provide Harvard University scientists with leftover embryos for stem-cell research in what could make the school one of the world's top suppliers of embryonic stem cells, the Boston Globe reported on Friday.
Boston IVF, an organization of fertility clinics, plans to begin contacting donor couples soon for permission to use their embryos so Harvard can extract stem cells, the newspaper said. Harvard researchers plan to offer the new stem cells to any interested scientist at no cost and with no commercial restrictions, the Globe said.
Neither Harvard researchers nor Boston IVF returned phone calls seeking comment.
Scientists who use stem cells provided by the new program apparently would be ineligible for federal funding for their research under the policy recently announced by President Bush.
Bush, in an address on Aug. 9, said government money only would be used to pay for research on stem cells already in existence at that time.
Extracting a batch of stem cells from an embryo destroys the embryo, which opponents consider akin to taking a life.
Bush's policy was a compromise aimed at allowing research to go forward on stem cells that already existed without encouraging further destruction of embryos to obtain new stem cells.
The Globe said Boston IVF was one of the first centers in the United States to engage in the study of stem cells, which are versatile primitive cells found in human embryos that can transform into virtually any cell type in the body.
Researchers envision using the cells to develop treatments for a wide range of medical conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, juvenile diabetes and spinal cord injuries. The cells would be used to regenerate healthy tissue to replace tissue wasted by disease or injury.
"This gives our patients an exciting opportunity to participate in these studies, and possibly benefit from both cutting-edge technology and the latest know-how," Boston IVF said in a statement on its website. "Some patients may receive the additional benefit of defraying some of the costs of the treatment."
In his policy speech earlier this month, Bush said there were 60 lines of stem cells available for use in research, but many scientists have questioned that figure. Stem cell lines are reservoirs of genetically identical stem cells derived in laboratories from a single human embryo.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that most or all of the stem-cell lines approved for federal funding under Bush's policy had been mixed in the laboratory with mouse cells. As a result, the newspaper said, federal rules could make it difficult for scientists to use them to develop treatments for use on humans.
The Food and Drug Administration, concerned about the risk of transferring potentially deadly animal viruses to people, has been developing guidelines that place stringent requirements on the transplant of animal tissue into humans, the newspaper said.
Under the guidelines, the stem cells mixed with mouse cells would be considered animal tissue if transplanted into humans, it said.
