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Will new ESC rules hurt research?

The Scientist, Posted by Elie Dolgin
[Entry posted at 14th May 2009 05:21 PM GMT]
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55692/

The retroactive nature of the NIH's proposed guidelines on human stem cell research will exclude funding for many existing stem cell lines that were ethically created yet don't meet the stringent criteria of the proposal's technical requirements, according to a new report [Retroactive Ethics in Rapidly Developing Scientific Fields] published online today (May 14) in Cell Stem Cell.

The proposed regulations outline nine distinct elements to be documented in written informed consent forms for embryo donors, including prohibiting directed donation, barring financial compensation, and requiring that donors of unused IVF embryos sign at least two separate consent forms, one of which must avoid mention of stem cell research. All these rules apply retroactively.

Ahead of the NIH's May 26th deadline for comments on the draft guidelines, the paper's author, Patrick Taylor, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and deputy general counsel at Children's Hospital Boston, who co-chairs the International Society for Stem Cell Research's standards committee and has sat on many of its task forces, spoke with The Scientist about why he takes issue with the new NIH rulebook.

The Scientist: Two months ago, President Barack Obama pledged to lift restrictions on funding human embryonic stem cell research. Do you think that the NIH guidelines live up to that promise?


Hopkins, University of Maryland land stem cell funding

Baltimore Business Journal - by Julekha Dash Staff,
Thursday, May 14, 2009, 1:34pm EDT | Modified: Thursday, May 14, 2009, 4:57pm
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore...ml?t=printable

Two Montgomery County firms, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland are among the recipients of nearly $19 million state funding for stem cell projects.
The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission has granted awards for 59 projects, out of 147 applications that it received.

Virxsys Corp. of Germantown and Rockville’s GlobalStem Inc. are the only two private companies that received stem cell funding.

That awards range from $55,000 to $300,000 per year. The largest grants are given to scientists who have preliminary data supporting their research.


Pesticides plus genetics increase risk of Parkinson's disease

Authors: Ritz B, A Manthripragada, S Costello, S Lincoln, M Farrer, M Cockburn, J Bronstein. 2009. Dopamine transporter genetic variants and pesticides in Parkinson's disease. Environmental Health Perspectives doi:10.1289/ehp.0800277.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.o...-of-parkinsons

Exposure to commonly used agricultural pesticides may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, particularly among people who have certain gene types. The degenerative nerve disease can develop when dopamine levels in the brain are lower than normal. Without pesticide exposures, susceptible gene variants alone were not sufficient to increase risk. The increased risk to Parkinson's required both susceptible genes and pesticide exposure.


Exercise Neuroscience Lab yields new insights into movement disorders

University of Delaware, 11:50 a.m., May 14, 2009
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2009/may/movement051409.html

Researchers in the Exercise Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Delaware are studying the control of muscular force and movement at the most fundamental level of force control: a single motoneuron and the muscle fibers that it innervates, known collectively as a motor unit.

Chris Knight, assistant professor in the Department of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences, hopes that what he and his research team learn from the recordings of individual motor units will provide valuable new insights into what's going on in the brains of individuals suffering from movement disorders such as stroke, Parkinson's Disease, and tremor.


The End Of The Line For Existing Stem Cell Research?

Medical News Today, Article Date: 15 May 2009 - 4:00 PDT
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150213.php

Time is short for scientists to respond to the call for comments on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed guidelines for the use of human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and their eligibility for federal funds. On May 26, the window to provide feedback will close, and the drafted rules leave the possibility that funding for almost all existing cell lines will disappear.

In a Forum article published online on May 14 by Cell Press in the journal Cell Stem Cell, Patrick Taylor, deputy general counsel at Children's Hospital Boston, explains some of the legal implications of the NIH's new funding rules, should they be adopted as written. Since the rules are retroactive, he explains, ongoing research is threatened.


CANADA / Rural Alberta could lose hospitals, group warns

By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com, Published: Thursday, May 14, 2009
http://www.chtv.com/ch/chcanews/story.html?id=1596335

EDMONTON - Ten hospitals in central Alberta will be downgraded to urgent care centres if the government follows a master plan laid out in a medical staff newsletter, Friends of Medicare said Thursday.


Providing Free Drug Samples To Patients Risks Harm To Public Health

Medical News Today, 14 May 2009
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150081.php

The tradition of American physicians handing out free drug samples to their patients "has many serious disadvantages and is as anachronistic as bloodletting and high colonic irrigations," say two academics in an essay in this week's PLoS Medicine.

Susan Chimonas, a researcher at the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, New York City, USA, and Jerome Kassirer, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a distinguished professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, USA, argue that giving "free" samples is "not effective in improving drug access for the indigent, does not promote rational drug use, and raises the cost of care."