On 26-27 February, representatives from 19 countries plus California and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation discussed international collaboration for stem cell research, particularly how to coordinate cell banks and registries. Announcements included that India would become the 20th country to join the forum and that induced pluripotent stem cell lines would not be included in the characterization efforts already well underway for embryonic stem cell lines, but that decision would be reconsidered at the meeting in October. (See our commentary and research highlight on ISCF-funded projects.)
The group of research funders, known as the International Stem Cell Forum (ISCF) was founded in January 2003 through the UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC).
In an interview with me, chief executive of the MRC, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz described the ISCF’s efforts. A shorter, prettier version of this is online at Nature. I expect it will print next week.
What do you hope to accomplish at this meeting?
This forum is actually quite an important forum. It brings the major funders together and allows us to compare and contrast issues in different countries. It allows us to look at the global climate for stem-cell-related research, and to look at issues such as some the ethical issues on a geographical distribution. It allows us to look at the intellectual property climate that exists in different countries.
And it allows is the contact where we can come to bilateral and multilateral agreements when we have research that crosses international boundaries. It’s an extremely important networking event from that standpoint. And anything that highlights stem cell research is a very good thing indeed.
Researchers are already sharing lines. Why are stem cell banks important?
The advantage of the bank is that when you get something from a bank that it’s exactly what it says on the tin.
It’s to make material available to investigators in a characterized way, knowing that if another investigator requests the material they get it in exactly the same format, so that you get reproducibility. You can imagine how important that’s going to become as we start to get closer to putting this material back into patients.
So far, there are very few stem-cell banks. How many does the world need?
The set-up of several of these banks around the world is very important. Yes, there’s redundancy there. What’s important is that we get them actually talking to each other, because we’ve got to make sure that when they reach processes, they’ve got checks and balances. Many banks have been created under a different legal framework in different countries.
At the end of the day, there will be a balance in terms of how many banks are necessary. We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got real coordination so that the material we are providing is similar.
Meetings like the one we are having are important to see what’s available. When is the redundancy going to be too much and where is the duplication actually productive?
What will the ISCF be talking about in five years?
In the current climate there is plenty for us to discuss and debate. One thing I’m going to be looking forward to is when we get to work with the investigators themselves. I’d like to see the investigators come together in a variety of organizations and maybe picking up some of that agenda so that we don’t have to meet on such a visible way.
It’s odd that, because of the political situation, the forum includes three organizations from the NIH, but just one from all the other countries.
Most of the organizations I sit with are international. The importance is whether the funders themselves wish to commit to an area. It’s better to hear what they’re doing than to be petty about numbers.
Is the funding situation simpler in the United Kingdom?
The climate in the UK is that we do have central government support for stem-cell related research, so my belief is that simplifying the process by which investigators can assess resources rather than putting it into many small compartments makes it much easier for them.
The other advantage of the MRC is that we don’t earmark funds. If we get high quality applications over and above that, then within the MRC we have the ability to insure that we make additional budgets available. So we don’t run into the idea that we put so much money into a biscuit tin and that’s it.
Even though the UK is greatly expanding funds for stem cell research, it is still dwarfed by the amount that California is including.
MRC is identifying a budget of probably close to 17 million pounds over 2-3 years and we’ll be announcing a board that will be looking specifically at translation.
The fact that California is making the funds available, that’s a great thing. It does put pressure on the UK to make sure that resources are available for researchers in the United Kingdom, but that’s a very positive pressure.
The publicly funded MRC is involved in corporate partnerships. How does that work?
Of course there are checks and balances. We don’t just enter into these discussions and say `what would you like?’ We sit around and work very carefully to make sure that both sides feel comfortable and protected.
It’s about insuring the academic freedom of investigators to work with compounds in a way where they’ve got freedom to publish and make sure that the information gets into the public domain, but that the collaboration accelerates the push-through into clinical practice.
What are some problems moving into the clinic? How does your clinical background shape your thoughts on moving stem cells into the clinic?
One of the questions that’s going to have to be addressed, particularly for the induced pluripotency [adult cells that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state using genes] lines is the issue of tumourigenicity — knowing how and when you’re going to need to activate particular genes, some of which may be predisposed for the development of tumours. These are very real issues that we will have to address as we move forward.
What’s very important is that we don’t say `Oh, gosh, we can’t move forward because there is this obstacle.”
What you don’t want is to suddenly get a block that you didn’t identify. There’s nothing worse than doing a whole lot of basic science on a line and then actually find that you can’t use that line to get to the point of a therapy.
Since you’ve taken office, funding for science has soared and there’s been a reorganization. Is there still talk of a crisis?
Where people may have felt there was a crisis previously was in a lack of knowledge within the UK, whether you were going to the Medical Research Council or to the National Institute of Health Research.
Both of us need to make sure that we are very flexible when someone thinks that there’s an area that straddles two areas, what we’re saying is `come and talk to us’
We want the science to happen and we don’t want people to feel in any way penalized because they are taking a more multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary direction. I honestly hope that the crisis of confidence has faded into the background.
The real issue is how do you handle large-scale science at institutions so that you don’t end up with people having to separate different components of a totality they see. They can report to the MRC as the full-scale of the project they wish to undertake.