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American Morning

NIH Announces 60 Existing Stem Cell Lines

Aired August 27, 2001 - 11:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush left lots of scientists scratching their heads -- and their brainy heads at that -- earlier this month. He claimed some 60 stem cell lines existed. These colonies qualify for taxpayer-paid research under his stem cell guidelines. Just last hour, the federal government sought to wipe that puzzled look off researchers' faces, and our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is in Washington where she's had a look from NIH of just who has these stem cell lines.

Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

You're absolutely right, there was chorus of doubters when President Bush made his announcement August 9th, there are 60 stem cell lines. Well, now, in the past hour, the National Institutes of Health, has put it up on their Web site. They have a list of the 60. These are 60 lines, where people can do research on those lines, using the stem cells, and receive federal funds. Let's take a look at where they are.

First we have here the Goteborg University in Sweden has 19 lines. That's the most of any one Institution. And then CyThera in San Diego is next with nine lines. And then Reliance Life Sciences in Bombay, seven lines. And then The Monash Institute of Reproductive Biology in Melbourne, Australia, six lines. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, another Swedish company, five lines. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. That's part of the University of Wisconsin, five lines. BresaGen, which is in Athens, Georgia, four lines. The Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, four lines. The National Center for Biological Sciences in India has three lines. And then University of California at San Francisco has two lines.

Now you 'll notice a couple of interesting things here, first of all, only 20 out of the 64 from the United States. Most of them are from outside the United States. And something surprised me, and I think probably surprised other people, is that 24 out of the 64 are from Sweden. Everyone knew that the Swedes had stem cell lines, but not that they had quite that many. I think most people thought that certainly the Americans were bigger players.

Now another interesting thing is that President Bush has called in stem cell researchers from around the world come meet with its staff.

I was Dulles Airport this morning with Joseph Itiskovitz, who is a stem cell from Israel. He flew in this morning. He said that the White House wanted him to come so much they promised they would give him someone who spoke Hebrew, which is kind of funny, because he speaks perfect English. However, he has come in here, he's got meetings with the NIH, and he's got meetings with the White House, and he's just one of all of these groups. All 10 of these groups have been meeting with the NIH, with the White House, to try to sort out, what are some of the rules of engagement? How are we going to do this? How are we going to pay for these? How are we not going to pay for these? And those are some of the details that they've been working out.

Now when NIH put out their press release today, they also had what I guess I would a mission statement researchers. They said, "We urge federally funded researchers to begin their explorations with the profound hope that we stand at the threshold of a true breakthrough in our ability to treat disease and disability."

Now that is the hope for stem cells. It's hope that they can cure or treat all sorts of diseases or disabilities. No one is absolutely sure that will happen, but that's the hope -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Elizabeth, help me understand the money trail here a little bit. It seems to me as I looked at that list that you presented, we're talking about a lot of private companies that hold these stem cell lines, so does that mean millions of these taxpayer dollars are going to go to the companies to pay for patent rights?

COHEN: Well, I think people are making different kinds of arrangements. It will be very complicated, and lawyers are going to make a whole lot of money on this. For example, one company out of Georgia, we want to give our stem cells away for free, anyone can have them, just take them, and what they're hoping is that if they give them way to 100 researchers, maybe two will come up with something good, find a cure to cancer, then they want a cut of it. That's the way they arranged it. So I think people will come up with different arrangements.

But yes, it definitely means that these private companies are going to be making some money off of them, but the reason for that is the federal government wouldn't fund embryonic stem cell research in the beginning, so private companies were the only ones doing it. Now they're going to reap those rewards.

KAGAN: All right, they've been putting the money up front, because the federal government wasn't.

COHEN: Exactly.

KAGAN: Elizabeth Cohen, Washington D.C., thank you.

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