Massachusetts floats $1 bln stem cell research plan

Wed May 9, 2007 2:44AM EDT

By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts' governor proposed on Tuesday to spend $1 billion on biotechnology over 10 years, aiming to fill a federal funding shortfall caused by the Bush administration's opposition to embryonic stem-cell research.

Challenging California's dominance in an area of science that could lead to cures for Parkinson's disease and other ailments, Gov. Deval Patrick said the money would support research grants and strengthen facilities used by both public and private scientists.

"The future of life sciences is here in Massachusetts," the Democratic governor said in a statement.

Massachusetts is the latest region to express lofty ambitions in emotionally charged embryonic stem-cell research, which requires destruction of days-old embryos and is opposed by abortion foes and the White House on ethical grounds.

Britain set up the world's first stem cell bank in 2004 to store and supply the cells for research, Singapore is aggressively courting leading stem-cell scientists, while India, China and South Korea are investing heavily in the area.

Massachusetts has some advantages. It is already a major medical cluster with two world-leading universities, four medical schools, 20 teaching hospitals and over 500 life-science companies.

Under Patrick's plan, a Massachusetts Stem Cell Bank will become the nation's first centralized repository of new stem-cell lines available to public and private researchers, while a Massachusetts Life Science Center would be expanded.

The proposal requires legislative approval, but leaders of the state House of Representatives and Senate backed a 2005 bill encouraging stem-cell research, which was opposed by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who is now a presidential candidate.

The plan, unveiled at an industry conference in Boston, would include investments in companies that "encourage life science economic development" in the state, Patrick said.

Flat federal funding since 2003 had caused a 13 percent loss of funding power by the National Institutes of Health and a 35 percent drop in support for clinical trials, he added.

Advocates and a majority of the U.S. public back stem-cell research, which scientists believe could one day be used to provide individually tailored tissue and organ transplants, or repair spinal cord injuries.

The Democratic-led U.S. Senate voted to lift a restriction by President George W. Bush on the federal funding of stem cell research in April, but Congress is not expected to muster enough votes to override a promised Bush veto.

California has given a strong boost to the research. In 2004, state voters backed the creation of the California Institute for Regenerative Research, passing a measure giving it the power to raise up to $3 billion in debt to finance stem-cell research.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0822789220070509