Day 7 stem cells: The future of the med center
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By MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star
Listen to the players and you’ll believe this is a game of the highest stakes.
On one side are those who say the future of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha quite literally hinges on stem cell research: If The Big Breakthrough happens, they ask, will UNMC be part of the action or watching from the sidelines?
On the other side are skeptics who say the med center is hyping controversial research to cloud the real issue: Society has reached a critical juncture in deciding how it wants to treat human life — and it must decide now.
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Awards at the University of Nebraska Medical Center have skyrocketed in recent years. (Sheila Story / JournalStar.com)...
The Journal Star asked three people who lead organizations that oppose embryonic stem cell research for their last words on the subject to run on the last day of our seven-day series.
Chip Maxwell, executive director, Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research
“The series gives great play to the assertion that all opposition to embryo-destructive research is rooted in religion, and any argument claiming to be rooted in science is really religion masquerading as science.
“I speak for a group that includes doctors and biomedical researchers who are passionate about healing. They also are passionate about a code of professional ethics that prohibits experimentation likely to harm humans, even if the goal is to help other humans.
“After fertilization, the egg gives way to a new organism, a human embryo that is alive and on a path of self-directed development before implantation in the womb. Otherwise there would not be stem cells to harvest prior to implantation. Harvesting those stem cells destroys a living human at the embryonic stage.
“As to hope for suffering people, there are no treatments in humans with embryonic stem cells and no human clinical trials under way, because two decades of testing with lab animals has produced results so negative that scientists don’t dare put embryonic stem cells into humans.
“Meanwhile, the actual potential of adult stem cells is just as limitless as the theoretical potential of embryonic stem cells. I say ‘actual’ versus ‘theoretical’ because adult stem cells are improving or curing more than 70 conditions in humans right now, and there are more than 1,100 human clinical trials under way in which researchers are expanding the capabilities of adult stem cells.
“As I said earlier in the series, the science is on our side.”
Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director, Nebraska Right to Life
“UNMC’s official position given in testimony by several of their doctors and representatives before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on March 10, 2005, and on March 7, 2007, is that they want to leave the door open to human cloning.
“Cloning is the end game - creating new human life for the express purpose of killing that life for research. It’s not surprising that the LJS series focuses on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) and says very little about cloning. Cloning polls negatively while ESCR conjures up the use of ‘leftover’ human embryos and stem cell lines.
“In 2000, UNMC begged the Legislature to just let them use the byproduct of abortions in their fetal tissue research. Look how far we have degenerated since that debate ensued. Then it was all about letting researchers use what would be discarded anyway. Now it is about placing absolutely no parameters on research and letting scientists create new human beings to tinker with.
“You don’t have to have eight medical degrees to see the path that lies ahead. If no limits are placed upon research, then the door is wide open to the exploitation and destruction of human beings as commodities.
“Right now researchers are content to dismiss their early medical school training and say they don’t know when life begins. What happens when it moves beyond embryos and suddenly the new horizon for promise lies in harvesting brain cells from elderly Parkinson’s patients? Who draws the line where and when?”
Greg Schleppenbach, Bishops' Pastoral Plan for Pro Life Activities, Nebraska Catholic Conference
“Destroying human beings at their embryonic stage of development to harvest their stem cells for research confronts our society with profound ethical questions. These ethical questions deserve a more substantive and balanced public discussion than this series provided.
“First, under the headline of ‘Stem Cells,’ this series provided information about only one source of stem cells ” embryos. It largely ignored the numerous non-embryonic and ethically acceptable sources of stem cells (e.g., amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood and various parts of the human body). This gives the public a false impression that embryonic stem cells are the only source (and hope) for cures or therapies.
“Second, this series provided one side of the debate. It only specially featured individuals who conduct or advocate for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Furthermore, rather than merely explaining the featured scientists’ research, it devoted nearly as much space to their moral views (allowing no response to their criticism of ESCR opponents). Why didn’t this series give equal voice to researchers and patient advocates who reject the destruction of some humans for the benefit of others? Third, the series devoted only one installment to the main reason ESCR is controversial: its ethical challenges. It does not facilitate a meaningful public discussion of these challenges when complex ethical arguments are synthesized down to a few quotes.
“The ethical case against ESCR is better reasoned and more compelling than this series suggests. I urge readers to honestly explore this ethical case by going online to www.stemcellresearch.org and www.cloninginformation.org.”
Growth at UNMC
Among construction projects at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha are two major buildings slated to open next year:
- The Research Center for Excellence II, a 10-level, 242,000-square-foot research tower next to the research tower that opened in 2003 on the campus’ southwest edge.
- The Center for Health Science Education, a $53 million, 134,000-square-foot facility that UNMC says will replace outdated equipment with high-tech classrooms, amphitheaters and state-of-the-art laboratories.
Research awards at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha have skyrocketed in recent years.
- 1999: $30.93 million
- 2000: $40.05 million
- 2001: $41.33 million
- 2002: $50.77 million
- 2003: $56.2 million
- 2004: $68.2 million
- 2005: $72 million
- 2006: $80 million
Two lines of embryonic stem cells exist at UNMC. Two researchers lead teams that study them. Everyone is watching.
This past fiscal year was a headline-maker for UNMC, Nebraska’s first medical college and now a sprawling 76-acre, 3,100-student, 4,400-staff campus. Researchers hauled in nearly $80 million worth of grants, an increase from just $30.9 million in 1999.
That same year, six UNMC colleges or programs were listed among the best in U.S. News & World Report magazine’s annual academic rankings, including the College of Medicine, rated top-notch in the primary care category.
The campus is looking toward physical growth as well. In 2003, UNMC opened the 10-level, $77 million Durham Research Center, a landmark research tower that’s home to some of the university’s premier medical experts. A second tower is set to open next door in the winter of 2008.
A new Center for Health Science Education also is in the works, a $53 million facility for teaching and research scheduled to open next year.
On June 14, the NU Board of Regents approved a plan that would allow the med center to acquire 10 acres of land from the Omaha Public Power District. The land is on the campus’ southwest edge, near the pair of research towers. It’s the med center’s biggest land grab in three decades.
Some campus leaders believe research has powered all that growth. And it’s research, they say, that will pave the way to the med center’s future.
That’s why they say they’re exasperated by continued pushes by some legislators and conservative groups to restrict embryonic stem cell research.
The Cornhusker State, they fear, is getting a reputation. And it’s not a good one.
“It’s disconcerting to the scientific community to see this keep coming up,” said Dr. David Crouse, UNMC associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. “What it says is that there are some people in Nebraska who take a backward approach to science. It’s the message.
“We just don’t want anyone throwing a blanket over our scientists.”
Critics say they’re appalled at the idea of a scientific free-for-all in which researchers aren’t bound by ethical limits. They dismiss the idea that Nebraska’s reputation would suffer under tighter research restrictions.
“That’s like saying in the 1850s that the Nebraska territory must allow the option of slavery or we’ll get a reputation as a bad place to do business and put ourselves at a disadvantage for economic development,” Chip Maxwell, executive director of the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, said in a statement.
“Freedom of thought, freedom of scientific inquiry, means reviewing options and determining that some are ethical and some are not.”
NU policy allows embryonic stem cell research on already-existing stem cell lines, a practice that falls in line with President Bush’s federal guidelines. The NU Board of Regents hasn’t expressed interest in changing the policy since members approved it in 2001 but might revisit the issue if the nation’s next president loosens the guidelines.
NU also bans cloning, with no exceptions.
A proposal to make cloning a Class 4 felony died in the Legislature this year, to Crouse and others’ relief and to opponents’ disappointment.
Supporters believe an NU ban is sufficient and that harsh state laws would spread the attitude that Nebraska is, as Crouse put it, anti-science.
But the proposal’s backers wonder why some at UNMC would oppose a cloning ban when internal policy already prohibits it.
They’ve vowed to put the issue before lawmakers again — and again and again — until they succeed.
Potential UNMC recruits, Crouse said, know it.
“Why would you throw doctors who are trying to save people in jail?” he said. “Give me a break.”
He and Thomas Rosenquist, research vice chancellor, adamantly believe a cloning ban and any further restrictions on embryonic stem cell research would severely affect UNMC’s ability to attract top faculty, students and federal grants.
They say the med center already competes with states that have set up multimillion-dollar private research facilities for stem cell research. Regent policy prohibits private or public money being spent on research involving new embryonic stem cell lines in Nebraska.
Even more restrictions, Crouse and Rosenquist say, could cause UNMC’s best team members to flee and UNMC to miss out on an area of research some scientists believe could lead to treatments for Parkinson’s, strokes and more.
Neither will cite specific examples of recruiting efforts gone bad because of Nebraska’s handling of stem cell research. But they say it’s happened.
Potential hires, they say, will ask over dinner: Has Nebraska settled this issue yet? Crouse and Rosenquist must shake their heads no.
“I can say absolutely without fear of being wrong that it hasn’t helped us,” Rosenquist said.
Critics don’t buy that.
They point out that UNMC’s significant growth in recent years has come despite its research guidelines. Given such growth, they wonder, why oppose a statewide affirmation of parts of those guidelines?
Crouse says the increase in research dollars could have been higher. Maybe it could have grown fourfold, he said. Maybe fivefold.
Skeptics disagree.
Regent Randy Ferlic of Omaha, for example, said UNMC could be just as successful if it focused on less controversial areas of research. Further, he said, the circus surrounding embryonic stem cell research has hampered the med center’s mission of medical achievement.
“This type of research is hyped. It’s far too hyped,” said Ferlic, a retired heart surgeon and adamant embryonic stem cell research opponent. Ferlic was the lone regent in 2001 to vote against current NU policy.
“It’s distracting, and I hate to see the university get itself mired in this type of debate when they could be using their talent much better than spending their time lobbying.”
Ferlic dismisses the argument that UNMC could lose top faculty and grant money if embryonic stem cell research is further tightened, and he’s not alone.
“I don’t see any evidence of Nebraska falling behind,” Regent Bob Phares of North Platte said.
What’s more, Regent Jim McClurg of Lincoln said, Nebraska must hold its moral ground, not bow to outside pressure “to destroy human life” for research.
“There are many, many ways to do good research within federal guidelines,” he said. “Science is pushing on in fabulous ways.”
Maxwell and others cheered the recent news that scientists had gotten mice skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells — a significant development that, if replicated successfully in humans, could allow researchers to avoid the contentious issue of human embryo destruction.
“It’s more evidence that ethics and progress can proceed hand-in-hand in stem cell research,” said a statement from the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research.
Regents, though, remain split on the issue, with more than half of board members saying they’re open to loosening policy to expand the research.
Kent Schroeder of Kearney spoke of “chilling” effects if research is curtailed.
Regents Chairman Chuck Wilson of Lincoln said it’s clear NU will fall behind other states in research breakthroughs if new laws are implemented.
“The broader question is: What would be the impact of legislative interference in the research agenda based on sectarian beliefs?” Wilson said. “That kind of interference casts a pall over researchers in other areas. It says something about what the state’s view is of the research effort.”
Crouse believes it will take a major breakthrough — a cure for spinal cord injuries, for example — to turn the tide of opposition to embryonic stem cell research.
It won’t happen tomorrow. Rosenquist believes a breakthrough could happen in five years’ time; Crouse thinks it’ll take longer.
Both would love for UNMC scientists to be in the mix.
The future of the med center, they say, depends on it.
Said Crouse: “I don’t want to think that this is the best we can do.”
Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.
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