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Harvard University Invest in Human Embryo Stem Cell Research.
Harvard Make 17 New Human Embryo Stem Cell Lines Available
Wednesday, 03 March 2004

Only a few days ago, Harvard University Provost Steven E. Hyman announced plans to establish a multimillion-dollar center for the study of human embryonic stem cells in a broad push to strengthen Harvard University’s research in the field (see The Harvard Crimson, University To Launch Stem Cell Center, March 01, 2004).

"We are moving forward on a stem cell center," Hyman said.

"It’s something Harvard ought to be doing. It is something we can be pre-eminent in."

"We hope that sharing these cells will quicken the pace of discovery," said Dr. Douglas A. Melton. ©2004 Kathleen Dooher for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Today, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Dr. Douglas Melton at Harvard University announced that they have derived 17 new human embryonic stem cell lines. The new cell lines will be made available to researchers worldwide for free, although at this time US policies prohibit the use of federal funds to investigate these cells. Dr. Melton announced already last November at a scientific conference he had created these 17 new stem cell lines for research.

The cell lines were derived using private funds by researchers in the laboratory of Douglas A. Dr. Melton, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Harvard University. The researchers now have described the stem cell lines in an article published online on March 3, 2004, in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The article will also be in the March 25, 2004, print edition of NEJM.

Dr. Melton is a Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences at Harvard University and Research Associate at Children's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. He received a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and a B.A. degree in history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University, England. His Ph.D. degree in molecular biology is from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and Trinity College, Cambridge. Dr. Melton is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies.

Human embryonic stem cells have the potential to yield treatments for several devastating human diseases, as well as to enhance understanding of human development.

"Studies of embryonic stem cells in several different organisms indicate that these cells have the capacity to give rise to nearly all of the cell types present in an adult organism," Dr. Melton said.

"The cell lines that we are making available are robust, they grow well and are easy to handle."

Dr. Melton is also hopeful that the availability of the new cell lines will speed research developments in the area of stem cell biology.

"Consistent with the general practice among academic scientists, these cells are a reagent that will be shared," said Dr. Melton.

"We hope that sharing these cells will quicken the pace of discovery."

In 2001, Harvard University, HHMI and Boston IVF began a collaborative research effort that sought to realise the great therapeutic promise offered by human embryonic stem cells. Dr. Melton, Andrew P. McMahon, Chad A. Cowan, the article's lead author, and colleagues at Harvard worked with Douglas Powers and scientists from Boston IVF to produce the supply of human embryonic stem cells. Boston IVF supplied Dr. Melton and his colleagues with the excess, pre-implantation frozen embryos from which the stem-cell lines were derived.

The techniques used by Dr. Melton and his colleagues to derive the human embryonic stem cell lines were based, in part, on technology developed decades ago for mouse embryonic stem cells and more recent work by Ariff Bongso at National University Hospital in Singapore and James A. Thomson and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Dr. Melton noted, however, that in the course of their experiments, they discovered an easier way to tease stem cells free from surrounding tissues by using enzymes.

"One of the things our paper shows is that it's possible to select for cells that can be easily grown by using enzymes rather than by the tedious process of hand-dissecting them," Dr. Melton said.

"I would anticipate that in the future, researchers would use this method."

Dr. Melton’s own laboratory will use the stem-cell lines to pursue their interest in type 1 diabetes. His research team has been studying the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells that are missing in patients with type 1 diabetes, which commonly afflicts children. His group's long-term goal is to learn how to direct the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, so that they can generate pancreatic beta cells that can be used as a therapy for type 1 diabetes.

Yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., together with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., wrote a letter to President Bush saying:

"It now appears that the administration may have misinformed the public ... on an issue of great public health significance."

They claim a document from the National Institutes of Health says under the "best case scenario," only 23 stem cell lines will be available, far fewer than the 78 cell lines deemed eligible originally.

Waxman also said the new NIH count suggests few more are on the way soon. Of the 78 potentially eligible cell lines, 31 are the property of foreign institutions unlikely to be available for "widespread distribution at any time in the foreseeable future," and in 17 lines, the cells don't reproduce; another seven are duplicates, the document says.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), an independent, non-profit organisation formed to foster the exchange of information about stem cell research, says the number of available human embryonic stem cell lines is a matter of some debate. The ISSCR Web site states that only about 8-10 cell lines in total are currently widely accepted as true human embryonic stem cells.

The availability of these new cell lines from Harvard should provide a boost to stem cell researchers worldwide.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, HHMI and Harvard University together provided funding for the research and construction of the research facilities in which the stem cell lines were derived.