Changing attitudes; Stem cell firm sees hopeful signs in Washington.

Byline: Lisa Eckelbecker

WORCESTER - Advanced Cell Technology Inc. has never been shy about going its own way when it comes to working on embryonic stem cells.

The company, based in California with a laboratory in Worcester, has raised private money and developed its own lines of the controversial cells while also urging politicians to drop government funding restrictions on the work.

But recently Advanced Cell announced that it received a $204,439 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop molecular tags to track the development of embryonic stem cells. With that grant and a new Congress contemplating looser rules for stem cell funding, Advanced Cell Chairman and Chief Executive William M. Caldwell IV says he senses a political environment that is more supportive of the technology, which could help ease some of the uncertainty about embryonic stem cell businesses.

"It's not the money that would come out of the federal government" that is most important, Mr. Caldwell said. "It's the (political) overhang that has been a detriment to the industry seeking corporate partners and more established groups seeking to come in and develop the technologies."

Stem cells are the body's master cells, capable of developing into other types of cells. Adult stem cells are found in the body or the umbilical cord blood of newborns. Embryonic stem cells come from the center of embryos that are just a few days old.

Adult stem cells from the blood system have long been used as treatments to rebuild the body's blood and immune systems. Some scientists think embryonic stem cells could be an even richer source of cellular treatments for ailments such as Parkinson's disease.

To pluck embryonic stem cells from embryos, however, researchers have followed procedures that destroy the embryos. Opponents of that include the Catholic Church and President Bush, who decided in 2001 that researchers could only get federal funding for embryonic stem cell studies if they used cell batches already in existence.

Federal funding matters in the life sciences because government support often backs early experiments. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies typically get involved later by translating basic research into potential human treatments. The earliest embryonic stem cell research may be too risky and too far from commercialization for many corporate investors.

With his decision in 2001, President Bush sought to balance research and ethics, but researchers have complained that the 21 "presidential" cell lines are too few and too compromised by the mouse cells they grew upon to fully support a robust research agenda. Some institutions, such as Harvard University, have generated new lines with private money and made them available for researchers. Advanced Cell has also developed some of its own cells, including lines the company said it produced using a technique capable of leaving embryos intact.

During their "first 100 hours" Democrats in control of the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill 253-274 that would ease funding rules for embryonic stem cell research. The U.S. Senate is expected to take up similar legislation next. President Bush, who used the first veto of his presidency last year to block a similar measure, has said he still opposes changes.

The U.S. stem cell community would benefit if politicians found a compromise that allowed federally funded researchers to work on some of the lines that have been developed in the past five years, said Jan-Eric Ahlfors, chief executive of Total ReCord Inc., a Worcester biotech company working on regenerative medicine therapies that do not use embryonic stem cells.

"The rest of the world has now surpassed the United States in both the quantity and the level of how far they have gotten in terms of this type of research, which is unusual because usually the U.S. is the leader in all medical research," Mr. Ahlfors said.

As international scientists have moved ahead with embryonic stem cell research, some U.S. states have passed laws permitting the work. Some are also funding research.

In 2004, California voters approved the sale of bonds to finance $3 billion in adult and embryonic stem cell research. Litigation has delayed the California grants, but Connecticut has started handing out funding that is expected to total $10 million a year for 10 years.

The point of these efforts is to stake out a position in the field so that once federal funding restrictions are lifted, research will concentrate in the places that have already established experts and organizations, said Paul R. Pescatello, president of CURE, the Connecticut United for Research Excellence network for the state's bioscience community. But states cannot fund all of the good research awaiting support, he said.

"When you look at the applications that came in for the state money, there is much more research to be funded than was funded," Mr. Pescatello said. "State dollars are limited. California, too. Wherever you look. What's striking about embryonic stem cell research is how many really good research proposals are out there."

Legislation, funding and research initiatives, such as an agenda to create a center for regenerative medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, are also important to let businesses know that Massachusetts wants them, said Kevin O'Sullivan, president of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, an economic development agency in Worcester.

"Perception is an important part of the business, and the competition is worldwide," Mr. O'Sullivan said. "I've said it before. You can't just legislate science."

Mr. Caldwell of Advanced Cell said during a recent conference call that Advanced Cell is seeking corporate partners to bolster development of eye, skin and hemangioblast cells as treatments. In the past, the political risk of working with stem cells has hung over companies and investors, he said. Some legislative relief and some successes in the lab would help, he said.

"Once you start developing a platform technology and move out of the science and into what I call the translational process ... you start a process that's irreversible," Mr. Caldwell said.

Contact business reporter Lisa Eckelbecker by e-mail at [e-mail].

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: Dr. Robert P. Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology Inc., is head of the company's Worcester laboratory.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/JIM COLLINS