Ethical cord blood research will help patients

OVER the last two weeks many arguments have been made in the face of the news that UCC were considering allowing embryonic stem cell research and more recently that the governing body had decided to allow it given suitable projects.

A great deal of private research funds followed from the private sector. However, the potentiality and vitality of the embryo stem cells proved to be their biggest liability because they proved to be unmanageable, multiplied quickly and reverted to cell types developing tumours in research specimens.

With the failure of embryos to produce marketable treatments, the private money began to dry up and be increasingly attracted by the stunning successes being achieved in the area of adult stem cells, cord blood and placenta stem cells. So the advocates of embryonic research turned to governments and other taxpayer-funded research programs. In Europe, there are several such funds, however, the fullest honeypot is the EU Seventh Framework Research Program which has a budget estimated at more than €7 billion a year to spend on R&D including embryonic stem cell research. There are three advantages of the EU research fund for academics over the private one: