News Brief: NIH nominee supports federal funding of stem-cell research
Noted medical researcher Elias Zerhouni, MD, President George Bush’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), indicated strong support for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research at his initial Senate confirmation hearing, the Associated Press reported on May 1.
Without federal funding, researchers would shy away from a field of study that promises to hold many major new advances in medicine, Zerhouni told reporters outside of the meeting.
In a hotly debated move last year, the Depart-ment of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which oversees the NIH, decided that only stem-cell lines already in existence could be used in federally funded research, and federal funds could not be used to fund efforts to derive stem cells from embryos or fund research involving cells obtained from embryos destroyed after the DHHS directive went into effect.
Many scientists believe that although the policy is sufficient to allow current research to continue, more stem-cell lines will be needed in the future.
Zerhouni seemed to echo this belief in remarks to the Senate committee, the report indicated, by saying the administration’s decision was an "important advance" because it allowed some federal funding to go forward. However, he said that, if the current stem-cell lines proved inadequate later, he would "be the first one to assemble that information."
Zerhouni currently serves as the executive vice dean of the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, chairman of the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science at Johns Hopkins and professor of radiology and biomedical engineering.
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