Hopes of Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research

The National Institute of Health has announced that they will be expanding research on non-destructive embryonic stem cell research in hopes of gaining federal funding:

This announcement follows an Executive Order issued by President Bush on June 20, 2007, requiring that "The Secretary of Health and Human Services ... conduct and support research on the isolation, derivation, production, and testing of stem cells that are capable of producing all or almost all of the cell types of the developing body and may result in improved understanding of or treatments for diseases and other adverse health conditions, but are derived without creating a human embryo for research purposes or destroying, discarding, or subjecting to harm a human embryo or fetus."

ACT's groundbreaking Single Cell Biopsy technique was cited by the NIH as an alternative method in its implementation plan -- a technique successfully demonstrated by Robert Lanza, M.D., Vice President of Research and Scientific Development at Advanced Cell Technology, and his team. The NIH plan calls for "aggressively pursuing an assessment of the potential of alternative sources of pluripotent stem cell lines, including altered nuclear transfer; single cell embryo biopsy, and reprogramming, or dedifferentiation of somatic cells, such as skin cells."