« Collider collisions draw near! | Main | Weird beasts from the abyss »

Bookmark in Connotea

Stem cell restrictions fail in Nebraska - November 20, 2009

A proposed resolution to restrict human embryonic stem cell research at the University of Nebraska has failed. The University's Board of Regents today split their votes 4-4, defeating a measure that would have limited research to embryonic stem cell lines approved under former President George W. Bush. The resolution needed a majority of five votes to pass.

"That probably settles the question for the time being," Thomas Rosenquist, vice chancellor for research at the University of Nebraska Medical School in Omaha, told Nature. "It's permission to go ahead and take part in 21st-century research with embryonic stem cells."

Nebraska law prohibits the destruction of embryos for research. But the state does allow scientists to follow federal standards in embryonic stem cell research. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama removed government funding restrictions on new stem-cell lines derived from embryos left over from fertility treatment, and an advisory panel is currently mulling over which of hundreds of potential new cell lines to approve.

The governing board's decision "is a big relief", says Angie Rizzino, a stem cell biologist at the University of Nebraska Medical School. "But I fear that they'll be back in a year or two trying to put a block on embryonic stem cell research again."

Comments

The research should go on for the betterment of the world community as prevention and cure of many diseases lie in stem cell treatments.

Stem cell therapy is set to become a major part of ATS, cancer, hearing loss treatments and of course plastic surgery. The need is however, is to ensure that these are stored in perfect condition before actually getting transplanted to the receiver’s body. This has made the industry of 'controlled rate freezers' to grow at a fast pace to keep up with the demand. I am doing a paper on ‘The Uses of Stem Cell Therapy and the Techniques of Storing Them’ and found your post valuable.
ww.princetoncryo.com/control-rate-freezer.html
Cynthia Beattie Mcgill

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by the blog editors before being published, mainly to ensure that spam and irrelevant material (such as product advertisements) are not published . Please keep your comment brief. Excessively long or offensively phrased entries will be edited.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. E-mail addresses are required in case we need to discuss your comment with you directly. We won't publish your e-mail address unless you request it.

Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'thegreatbeyond at nature.com'.

please enter code

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/9914