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Recovery Act Funding Supports 23 Fellowships For Early Career Scientists
Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will allow the National Institutes of Health to create jobs for early career scientists and increase the ranks of researchers and clinicians working in the global health field. With $3 million in funding over the next 18 months, the NIH"s Fogarty International Center will be able to support 23 additional participants in its Clinical Research Training Scholars and Fellows Program.
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New York Becomes First State To Allow Payment For Donating Eggs For Stem Cell Research
New York"s Empire State Stem Cell Board earlier this month decided to allow embryonic stem cell researchers who receive state funding to compensate women for donating their eggs for use in research, making New York the first state to enact such a policy, the Washington Post reports (Stein, Washington Post, 6/26). According to the New York Times, the New York state Legislature in 2007 allotted $600 million for an 11-year stem cell research plan (Nelson, New York Times, 6/26). Under the board"s decisions, researchers receiving the state funding may pay women up to $10,000 to compensate them for the time, discomfort and expenses associated with egg donation. David Hohn, vice chair of the board"s two committees that endorsed the decision, said that the board "could not distinguish ethically between the payment for in vitro fertilization, which is very well precedented, and the compensation for donation for research." The board said researchers should follow the same guidelines as infertility clinics that receive donated eggs for infertile couples. Under those guidelines, payments exceeding $5,000 must be justified, and those exceeding $10,000 are considered excessive (Washington Post, 6/26). Robert Klitzman, director of the master"s degree program in bioethics at Columbia University and a member of the stem cell board"s ethics committee, said the payments will be carefully evaluated by an institutional review board (New York Times, 6/26).The Post reports that the decision goes against policies in other states that offer funding for embryonic stem cell research, as well as against current guidelines from scientific organizations like the National Academy of Sciences (Washington Post, 6/26). NAS guidelines, for example, prohibit paying women for eggs used in stem cell research. Similarly, the internal guidelines for New York-based groups like Rockefeller University, Cornell University and the Sloan-Kettering Institute prohibit financial compensation for donated eggs. However, researchers say that efforts to recruit unpaid donors have been unsuccessful and that the board"s decision will give New York an advantage in stem cell research (New York Times, 6/26). The decision was welcomed by scientists and other proponents of stem cell research, who said it will allow them to further research in areas like therapeutic cloning. The process, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves replacing the genetic material in a human egg with genes from the nucleus of a patient"s cell. The egg is then developed into an early embryo, which, in theory, could be used to produce stem cells that the patient"s immune system would not reject. Although the procedure has been unsuccessful so far, researchers say the board"s decision will help attract more donors, which will allow for more experiments. Egg donation involves weeks of hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries and a painful egg extraction procedure, which carries rare but serious risks. Other attempts at soliciting women to donate eggs for stem cell research have been unsuccessful, according to the Post.Some critics of the board"s decision said that paying women for eggs could lead to exploitation, especially for low-income women. Thomas Berg -- a Roman Catholic priest who is director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person and a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Board"s ethics committee -- said that in the current economic recession, paying a woman $10,000 to participate in a research project is an "undue inducement." He added that he thinks it "manipulates women" and "creates a trafficking in human body parts." Other opponents of the decision questioned if compensating women who donate eggs for research is indeed equivalent to the process for infertility treatments. Jonathan Moreno, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that donors recognize that egg donation for infertility treatments is a "very concrete good for society" but that "you can"t be sure any biological material you collect for research wi
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Immunotherapy Linked To Lower Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease
IVIg treatments, the addition of good antibodies into the blood stream, may hold promise for lowering the risk of Alzheimer"s disease and other similar brain disorders, according to research published in the July 21, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
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Scientists Identify Gene Vital To Early Embryonic Cells Forming A Normal Heart And Skull

New research from Cincinnati Children"s Hospital Medical Center highlights the critical role a certain gene and its protein play during early embryonic development on formation of a normal heart and skull. In a study posted online June 15 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team at Cincinnati Children"s reports that too little of the gene/protein SHP2 interferes with the normal developmental activity of what are called neural crest cells. These cells, which occur very early in embryonic development, migrate to specific regions of the embryo. While doing so, the cells are supposed to differentiate and give rise to certain nerve tissues, craniofacial bones or smooth muscle tissue of the heart. "Our findings show that a deficiency of SHP2 in neural crest cells results in a failure of cell differentiation at diverse sites in the developing embryo," said Jeffrey Robbins, Ph.D., co-director of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children"s and senior investigator of the study. "This leads to anatomical and functional deficits so severe that it precludes viability of the developing fetus." SHP2 is a tyrosine phosphatase - an enzyme that helps trigger a cascade of biochemical reactions in cells as they specify to form certain tissues. Although the study was conducted using mouse embryos, the findings are significant in efforts to understand congenital malformations of the heart and craniofacial region in people. Especially relevant, the researchers said, is the insight gained into early molecular events during embryonic development that might help explain such birth defects. Dr. Robbins said the findings from this study can be used to develop specific drugs that could target the affected pathway, leading to treatment of heart and craniofacial malformations. About 4 percent of human infants are born with congenital malformations. Abnormal heart development is the most common human birth defect, affecting about 1 percent of newborns. The researcher team also wants to explore the exact alterations in neural crest cell migration, expansion and differentiation that contribute to birth defects of other organ systems. The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health. Other researchers include first author, Tomoki Nakamura, along with James Gulick, and Melissa C. Colbert, all of the Division of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology at Cincinnati Children"s. Jim Feuer Cincinnati Children"s Hospital Medical Center


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