The United Kingdom founded a new £16.5 million (USD $30 million) stem cell center in Cambridge this week with a commitment to fundamental research on both human embryonic and adult stem cells as a precursor to studying therapeutic applications.

The center's director, Roger Pedersen, professor of regenerative medicine at Cambridge University, dismissed calls to focus purely on adult and postnatal stem cells taken from the umbilical cord. "More than half of the research will be on embryonic stem cells," he told The Scientist. "We still don't understand 'stem-ness,' what it means to be able to differentiate to different cells, and we only know the identity of a handful of adult stem cells in the body, such as blood and muscle. However, embryonic stem cells by definition include all the other stem cells, so understanding them is a vital first step."

The United Kingdom has recently passed several milestones in stem cell research. The world's first stem cell bank was formally opened in Hertfordshire in May, with the deposition of two cell lines. In the same month, the Newcastle Centre for Life applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a license to undertake research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer.

In the United States, by contrast, where President George W. Bush has opposed work on human embryonic stem cells, 90% of the $200 million designated for human stem cell research by the National Institutes of Health is being spent on adult stem cell work.

Pedersen anticipates that his new center will attract a number of top stem cell researchers from the United States and elsewhere who are disgruntled with the failure of their governments to support human embryonic stem cell research. "I think what will be attractive is the stability in policy here. Some say the US policy will change after the presidential election, but that will still leave an embedded problem, which is the volatility of policy," he said.

There is no guarantee that any change for the better will not be undone by a future administration, said Pedersen, who himself was lured to Cambridge from California by the freedom to work on human embryonic stem cells in the United Kingdom.

The UK ProLife Party urged the new center to concentrate on animal, rather than human, embryonic stem cells. "There are still fundamental problems to be solved in animal models, in particular how to control growth of stem cells and stop them forming tumors," a ProLife spokesperson told The Scientist.

But Pedersen pointed out that while much of the center's early research will be fundamental, it will also address issues of clinical interest already identified by other laboratories, and this requires human stem cells. "We are already starting along that pathway, for example, asking how we make insulin-producing cells for the pancreas," he said.

In fact, the center is backed by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and diabetes, along with Parkinson disease, will be the first clinical targets. Treating these will require purified stem cells of just one type and could well be derived from adults rather than from embryos. But first, fundamental research has to be done, with Pedersen hoping to conduct the first human trials of therapies within 5 years.