“Latest Stem Cells News”

After US President Barack Obama opened up to embryonic stem cell research, “we will have an America that will begin to run ,and an Italy that risks becoming a parasite,” were the fears expressed by pharmacologist Elena Cattaneo, director of the stem cell research center of the University of Milan.

Obama’s attitude, observed the Italian researcher today during a meeting in Milan, “is very positive. He has opened the door to research,” she said to Adnkronos Salute, “but with caution, without crying miracle. With the idea that perhaps tomorrow future generations will be able to benefit from the results that will be obtained.”

The hope, said Cattaneo, is that these choices “will mark an opening to research in general, not only for embryonic stem cells. He has recognized their strength.” From a practical standpoint now “in the US, much more investment will be available, studies will be more daring to accept intellectual and experimental challenges, while Italy risks remaining behind. Unless we will be able to benefit from those studies, as long as we are capable of doing so.”

Texas researchers who thought President Barack Obama’s executive order lifting the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research would finally free them to ramp up work with the cutting-edge science are facing a new obstacle: the state Legislature.
Eighteen of the state’s leading scientists signed a letter sent to the Legislature Monday objecting to a provision inserted in the Senate budget bill last week that would ban state funding from supporting research involving the destruction of human embryos.

“Such an amendment would be detrimental to Texas,” said the statement. “A ban would halt ongoing research projects and negatively impact the ability of Texas academic health institutions, both public and private, to competitively recruit and retain world-class scientists, professors and students in the biological sciences.”
The bill, which passed the Senate Finance Committee 6-5 with little discussion, is scheduled to come before the full Senate floor Wednesday. The House is working on its own budget bill.

A Swiss company present in Italy that collects and stores umbilical cord stem cells, about 10,000 Italian mothers by the end of the year will have deposited their children’s umbilical cord stem cells in foreign banks, double compared to 2007. They said, “Just two years ago about 1,500 families decided to deposit their children’s umbilical cord stem cells in banks. In 2007, requests for this service tripled, reaching 5,000 and in 2008. There will be about 10,000 new cryostorages in order to make stem cells available in the future (illegal in Italy). Managing Director Jean Charles Janni said, “Northern families, mainly in Lombardy and Piedmont, have substantially increased in this practice.” He added, “but numerous requests are also coming from Rome, Emilia Romagna, and Campania.”

The following is a statement from Donatella Poretti, a Radical Democratic Party Senator:
We are still waiting for the current government, like all the previous ones, to decide to eliminate an absurd ban on biobanks in Italy and allow the private conservation of one’s own umbilical cord stem cells, and Italian mothers are doing the best they can, meaning they are sending their children’s umbilical cords abroad.
We have learned that this year exports increased to about 10,000 with authorization requests which must be sent to the National Transplant Center.