Gov't-Backed Stem Cell Research Center to Open in Australia
The Australian government is pumping $22 million into a research facility for adult stem cells as parliament prepares for a likely conscience vote on therapeutic cloning.
BRISBANE, Australia (AAP) – The federal government is pumping $22 million into a research facility for adult stem cells as parliament prepares for a likely conscience vote on therapeutic cloning.
The funding for a new adult stem cell research centre in Brisbane was announced by two of the government's leading conservative forces - Health Minister Tony Abbott and Queensland Nationals senator Ron Boswell.
The research centre at Queensland's Griffith University is believed to the first in the world dedicated to adult stem cell research.
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It will focus on diseases of the brain and spine, including Parkinson's, schizophrenia and motor neuron disease, but will not conduct research using embryonic stem cells.
Mr Abbott said the centre would receive $22 million over four years from the federal government, and its work would complement the existing national stem cell centre in Melbourne.
"The interesting thing about adult stem cell research is that it doesn't raise the ethical problems that many people perceive to be associated with embryonic stem cell research," he said.
The centre will be headed by Professor Alan Mackay-Sim whose research with Professor Peter Silburn helped win government support for the project.
Last year the scientists showed that stem cells from the olfactory mucosa - the organ of smell in the nose - could be grown in the laboratory into different types of cells, including heart, liver, muscle, kidney and blood cells.
The researchers would not be drawn on the effectiveness of adult stem cells compared with embryonic stem cells, saying their studies had showed that using adult cells was an efficient process.
"It doesn't really matter ... if one proves to be better in all cases than the other if you can find a cell to do the job such as the cells we're putting in the spinal chord now," Professor Mackay-Sim said.
"The main aim here is clinical outcomes."
Professor Silburn said adult stem cells had the advantage of being patient specific.
"An embryonic stem cell is from somebody who may not even be related so there are issues therefore that if you've got a disease with variation it may not even be relevant," he said.
"It's the specificity of the adult stem cells for an individual that's the important thing."
The government had not forced any funding restrictions on the centre.
MPs and senators may be asked to reconsider so-called therapeutic cloning after a major review led by former Federal Court judge John Lockhart last year called for the technique to be permitted under license.
Under existing laws governing embryo research and the prohibition of cloning, scientists can use only spare IVF embryos for stem cell research.
Mr Abbott and Senator Boswell are opposed to therapeutic cloning, with the Nationals' Senate leader declaring last October that studies into embryonic stem cell research had failed and it was time to get behind alternatives.
But other government MPs, including Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, have indicated support for overturning the ban.
Mr Abbott has refused to indicate how the government would respond to the Lockhart review.
Senator Boswell said the funding announcement had nothing to do with the Lockhart review and it was something the government had been examining for a year.
A conscience vote is expected to be held this year.
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