National Institute of Health to Explore Stem Cell Research, Per President Bush’s Executive Order

According to the Department of Health and Human Services news release, The National Institute of Health has announced that they will begin implementing President Bush’s Executive Order to begin exploring stem cell research.

The National Health Institute’s plan will include a array of new activities such as developing several different funding opportunity announcements which include, Program Announcement. Program Announcement will ask those grant application that are proposing research on human pluripotent stem cell derived from non embryonic sources, which include somatic cells or cells that would be found in amniotic fluid. The Stem Cell Task Force will also create two other programs that will stimulate the research in specific areas very quickly. Those programs would be awarded to researchers who are already working in stem cell research to augment certain areas of their work that the National Health Institute is interested in.

The plan that the National Health Institute will be pursuing aggressively will be the potential of alternative sources of pluripotent stem cell lines, which include altered nuclear tranfer, single cell embryon biopsy, reprogramming, dedifferentation of somatic cell (skin cells). All of these methods have already been proposed, however the National Health Institute is still questioning whether or not they are feasible. The National Health Institute will address these issues by doing a comprehensive research portfolio review so that they can determine what research The National Health Institute is currently supporting in the area and have a state to state science workshop that will identify key questions.

Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., NIH Director said in a prepared statement “NIH has been pursuing the potential of stem cells on all fronts, whether they are human embryonic, adult, or cord blood – since they were discovered. It is one of the central scientific challenges of our time,”.

Story Landis, Ph.D., Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, also added that “NIH will continue to consult widely with the scientific community to determine the best approaches.” “The Executive Order recognizes the recent developments in adult mouse cells that can be reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells, and we’ve laid out a strategy to explore their possible applications to human cells,”.

The National Institute of Health will rename their stem cell registry as the “Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry” and will consider all those eligible. To read the Executive Order please go to http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/091907eo.

The National Institute of Health is a component of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It includes 27 institute and centers and is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting clinical translational medical research. To learn more about the program please visit, www.nih.gov.

SOURCE : NIH Announces plan to implement President’s Stem Cell Executive Order.
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2007/od-18.htm