Thirteen human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines have received approval for use in federally funded research, with the promise of more to come as soon as this Friday, the National Institutes of Health announced today (December 2).

Human embryonic stem cells Image: Wikimedia commons, Nissim Benvenisty

"This is a significant day," NIH director Francis Collins said at a teleconference. "These [new lines] now becoming available we believe will speed up the process of investigating ways in which this remarkable new area of developmental biology can be explored."

Eleven of the 13 approved lines come from George Daley's lab at the Children's Hospital in Boston; the other two were derived at The Rockefeller University by Ali Brivanlou. None of the 13 lines were approved for federal funding under the Bush administration.

"We are fortunate to be among the first listed," said Daley, who attributes this feat primarily to the timing of his submission -- the day after NIH announced their new policy and called for new lines. "It's exciting to have the very, very hard work of the last several years done by my team now recognized and have the opportunity to be able to share [the lines] more widely with the research community."

These lines all came through the so-called "administrative" pathway to approval, Collins explained, in which an administrative review by NIH staff evaluates the submitted lines to make sure they strictly adhere to the NIH guidelines in terms of the informed consent process. Lines derived under different guidelines must go through an alternative pathway, in which an expert working group looks to see whether the core ethical principles that are represented in the NIH guidelines are adhered to. Twenty lines are currently undergoing this review process, and the working group is expected to make their recommendations to an NIH advisory committee on Friday. All told, there are a total of 109 hESC line that have been submitted to the NIH for approval.

"This is still just the beginning of what will be a much larger set," Collins said. "The set of hESC lines [approved for federal funding] will continue to grow."

Currently, there are 31 grants, totaling $21 million, involving hESC research that have already been funded by the NIH, but have been on hold until the NIH approved some lines. "Those 31 grantees are now given a chance to look at the registry and choose which lines they would like to start work with," Collins said. Once they notify the NIH of their choice, they can begin their work, which ranges from new therapeutic approaches to developing cell culture systems for the large scale production of hES cells.


Related stories:

NIH picks stem cell panel
[21st September 2009]

Two stem cell lines lead studies
[12th August 2009]

NIH loosens stem cell consent rules
[6th July 2009]

Will new ESC rules hurt research?
[14th May 2009]