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February 8, 2006 - BioWorld Today
International
Symposium On Stem Cell Collaboration.
Despite Setbacks, Scandals, Stem Cell Work Stays Strong
by Randall Osborne
West Coast Editor
SAN FRANCISCO - "Risk
and uncertainty combined with powerful promise on an international
scale" might be the most concise way to summarize the message from
the International Symposium on Stem Cell Collaboration, which,
during a single day, managed to bring together a variety of experts.
Held at the Mission Bay Conference Center at the University of
California at San Francisco, the event featured as a guest speaker
by video Roger Pedersen, formerly of UCSF, where his work in
genetics - begun in 1971 and lasting three decades - led him into
studies of human embryos and stem cells.
Pedersen, now the director of the Centre for Stem Cell Biology and
Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK, was hardly the only
speaker to mention "the sad story emerging from Korea" for months
now, a reference to data faked by researcher Woo Suk Hwang and his
team to support the claim that they had cloned human embryos to
provide embryonic stem cell lines. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 11,
2006.)
But Pedersen also echoed the hope expressed by others at the
conference, a hope that cuts across national borders, even as he
explained his departure from U.S. academia with a country-specific
reason.
"At the moment that I left UCSF for Cambridge, the U.S. government
was in fact not providing any support for embryonic stem cell
research," he said. "If you will, it was like being in a business
with one customer, that being the state of California," which was
funding his work through its BioStart program, with a private
sponsor in Menlo Park, Calif.-based Geron Corp.
"Had that funding ceased for any reason whatsoever, I and all of the
employees in my laboratory would have ceased to have careers, more
or less overnight," he said, so the move overseas became a business
decision. The money situation since has changed, Pedersen noted, and
his efforts at Cambridge have yielded more diversified funding, even
receiving as much as $30 million from the U.S.
One member of the audience asked what it would take for the widely
missed Pedersen to return.
"I don't really feel I left because I can visit you like this," he
said, gesturing to the video camera. "Don't try too hard [to get me
back]," he added, and pointed to the importance of an international
push.
Pedersen called for an exchange program that would let "the
brilliant young scientists from California visit other laboratories.
Something like the Rhodes scholarships, for example, or the Gates
scholarships," offered by Oxford and Cambridge, respectively.
Researchers checking out other labs would "enable California to tap
into the progress that's being made quite rapidly now at other
places." He urged the state, meanwhile, to forge ahead with
government-funded stem cell work.
For his part, Pedersen seemed ready to stay put.
"I feel I'm able to accomplish a great deal by working here in the
UK, perhaps even more than if I were in San Francisco," he said,
though the environment in which he operates now is "highly
restrictive. This is something that is not [well] appreciated
outside the UK. The regulatory environment is perhaps the strictest
one in the world."
In order to get the go-ahead for research on embryos, such as making
an embryonic stem cell line, a scientist must apply to the Human
Fertilization and Embryology Authority, he said, and failure to
comply with terms dictated by the HFEA can mean prison.
Wherever in the world they happen to be, remarked Jeff Newman as he
introduced a panel discussion, people working with stem cells
represent "those among us who are compelled to create large-scale
social change from where they stand."
Newman, technology and commerce partnership manager for the
California Business Transportation and Housing Agency, moderated a
discussion that sought to zero in on the bottom line - the business
prospects for stem cell research, still in its early stages.
"We came up with a scenario with regard to the financial landscape,"
he said. "We're assuming a 10-year payback as a reasonable
expectation. This is for the investor community. And within that
scenario, companies are starting to move now, should start to move
now, and the venture capitalists would come down three to five years
down the road."
The one-day stem cell symposium, organized and co-sponsored by the
San Francisco-based Women's Technology Cluster, ended Tuesday. Other
sponsors included Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and
DNA Bridges, both of
San Francisco.
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