Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act Of 2007

Floor Speech

STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - April 10, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. I thank my colleague from Georgia, who shares the passion of the Senator from Iowa, shares the passion of the Senator from Pennsylvania. We want to see scientific breakthroughs. We want to see cures for those kids who suffer from juvenile diabetes and friends who have ALS. I have a brother-in-law who suffers from Parkinson's.

How do we get there? Senator Specter noted that, as he filled an hourglass and said: The clock is ticking--and it is. The question becomes how do we move forward, not just in the debate but action. I am a former mayor. If it snowed in St. Paul and the streets weren't plowed, I heard about it. That is what you do--take action.

If we look at the amount of research going on in stem cell research, human embryonic stem cell research--they are pluripotent. What we are talking about is an ability of stem cells to--they have apparently an incredible elastic ability to be perhaps transformed to a heart or a liver, an incredible capacity--in theory. But clearly, scientists, I think uniformly, believe there is great hope and great opportunity there.

The reality today is that there is a certain amount of Federal dollars. What we are talking about is Federal dollars. We are not talking about the sum of all research but simply, What does the Federal Government do? What do we do with taxpayer dollars? Where do we put them?

In terms of human embryonic, pluripotent, the President said--I think it was in 2001--he talked about a series of lines that would be available, just that. He was drawing the line there in terms of embryonic stem cells. Of those lines, originally there were 60 or 70, and there are now about 20 lines.

There is about $132 million being spent in Federal money in human embryonic stem cell research and over $1 billion in human nonembryonic cord blood stem cell, bone marrow, other kinds of research--all of which is promising. In some areas, there are actually therapies going on.

It is fascinating. Scientists are also very passionate. I am not a scientist, but I have been listening to them. There are those scientists who are advocates of embryonic stem cell, and they are passionate that this is the way. Clearly, in theory, in terms of pluripotency, embryonic stem cells have more pluripotency than adult stem cells, but the critics say you have the process of embryonic stem cells, that they have the rejection because when you have organ transplants, you put another genetic material into somebody, and there are problems of rejection. You have the problem of tumors growing from them. They say we have to support adult stem cell because that is where the work is being done, that is where the breakthroughs are happening. Of course, other scientists come back and say, rightfully so, that adult stem cells do not have the elasticity, the pluripotency of embryonic, and so that is not the way. The question is, Is there a third way? Is there a way to get past the culture wars, to get past the great divide we have?

There are many in this country who believe passionately that Federal dollars should not be used for research which involves the destruction of a human embryo, who believe very passionately about that. There are others who say the cause of science is so great, the size of this embryo is so small, the hope we have to offer is so great, we need to move forward. There is a divide.

The reality today is, with policy as it is, if the Harkin-Specter bill passes--which I presume it will, probably overwhelmingly it will pass--and a similar bill is passed in the House and ultimately we work out the language and the President then vetoes it and, as my colleague from Pennsylvania recognizes, there are not enough votes to override the veto, at the end of the day of January 1, 2008, there will still not be more than $132 million spent on human embryonic pluripotency research.

The question is, Is there another way? Senator Isakson has talked about another way. He talked about dead embryos. My colleague from Iowa dismissed it: Dead embryos, what does that mean?

My colleague explained it well, that embryonic stem cells produced by that method have the same pluripotency, the same capacity as other embryonic stem cells, but they do not cross the moral line.

Within S. 30, there is the point of doing other kinds of research that does not cross the moral line. One is called altered nuclear transfer. Later I will, perhaps, put up some charts to show how it works, but very simply, if you think about it, science 101, take an egg and sperm, they come together, create an embryo, become a person--one of the pages here or a Senator or mom and dad sitting somewhere. Then what we do with altered nuclear transfer--actually, by the way, if you relate it to cloning, it is not cloning, but if you think of the concept of cloning, you take an egg, put some genetic material from an adult in there, and it becomes a person. Practically, we had Dolly the sheep, so we know that works. Altered nuclear transfer basically says take that egg, take some genetic material, and before you put it in there, you program the egg so it doesn't create an embryo but creates a tissue mass which has the same pluripotency, the ability to do all the other things any other embryonic stem cell would do.

I have a series of letters from scientists who say this should work. I will quote:

Research results suggest that Altered Nuclear Transfer may be able to produce human pluripotent stem cells--the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells--in a manner that is simpler and more efficient than current methods.

That is by Hans Schoeler, chairman of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

Recently, multiple labs in the United States and around the world have published or reported experiments in which adult cells were converted, not to embryos, but directly to pluripotent ``embryonic-like'' cells. The resulting cells were virtually indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells derived from embryos. The techniques used have included altered nuclear transfer, cell fusion and chemical reprogramming. The results were obtained from the top scientists in the field and published in the best journals.

That is by Markus Grompe, M.D., Oregon Stem Cell Center.

One last quote:

I think that current scientific evidence and reasonable expectations make it likely that altering a donor nucleus to preclude normal organization of any subsequent blastocyst is technically feasible and consistent with the scientific and medical goals of embryonic stem cell research.

That is by Lawrence S.B. Goldstein, Ph.D., Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

Much of the work is from a doctor, Dr. William B. Hurlbut, over at Stanford, the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford. I worked with him. He has published a lot on this issue. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a presentation by Dr. Hurlbut entitled ``Stem Cells, Embryos and Ethics: Is There a Way Forward?''

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Stem Cells, Embryos and Ethics: Is There a Way Forward?
(By William B. Hurlbut, M.D.,University of Notre Dame, Neuroscience Institute at Stanford, Apr. 18, 2006)

We are at a crucial moment in the process of scientific discovery. The dramatic advances in molecular biology throughout the 20th century have culminated in the sequencing of the human genome and increasing knowledge of cell physiology and cytology. These studies were accomplished by breaking down organic systems into their component parts. Now, however, as we move on from genomics and proteomics to discoveries in developmental biology, we have returned to the study of living beings. When applied to human biology, this inquiry reopens the most fundamental questions concerning the relationship between the material form and the moral meaning of developing life.

The current conflict over ES cell research is just the first in a series of difficult controversies that will require us to define with clarity and precision the moral boundaries we seek to defend. Human-animal Chimeras, parthenogenesis, projects involving the laboratory production of organs--and a wide range of other emerging technologies will continue to challenge our definitions of human life. These are not questions for science alone, but for the full breadth of human wisdom and experience.

The scientific arguments for going forward with this research are strong.

--The convergence of these advancing technologies is delivering unprecedented powers for research into the most basic questions in early human development.

--Beyond the obvious benefit of understanding the biological factors behind the estimated 150,000 births with serious congenital defects per year, it is becoming increasingly evident that certain pathologies that are only manifest later in life are influenced or have their origins in early development.

--Furthermore, fundamental developmental processes (including the formation and functioning of stem cells), and their disordered dynamics, seem to be at work in a range of adult pathologies including some forms of cancer.

Yet from the moral and social perspective there are serious concerns. (This is an eight-cell embryo on the sharp tip of a pin.)

It is important to acknowledge the many scientific projects for which human embryos could be used. Beyond their destruction for the procurement of embryonic cells, some fear the industrial scale production of living human embryos for a wide range of research in natural development, toxicology and drug testing.

Lord Alton, a member of the House of Lords in the UK told me that they estimate over 100,000 human embryos have already been used in scientific experimentation in Britain.

Beyond that, there is concern about the commodification and commercialization of eggs and embryos, and worry about the implications of ongoing research to create an artificial endometrium (a kind of artificial womb) that would allow the extracorporeal gestation of cloned embryos to later stages for the production of more advanced cells, tissues and organs.

Furthermore, from a social perspective, do we really want to have red state medicine/blue state medicine? The emerging patchwork of policies on the state level threatens to create a situation in which a large percentage of patients will enter the hospital with moral qualms about the foundations on which their treatments have been developed. What was traditionally the sanctuary of compassionate care at the most vulnerable and sensitive moments of human life is becoming an arena of controversy and conflict.

Clearly, both sides of this difficult debate are defending important human goods--and both of these goods are important for all of us. A purely political solution will leave our country bitterly divided, eroding the social support and sense of noble purpose that is essential for the public funding of biomedical science. While there are currently no federally legislated constraints on the use of private funds for this research, there is a consensus opinion in the scientific community that without NIH support for newly created embryonic stem cell lines, progress in this important realm of research will be severely constrained.

The current conflict in the political arena is damaging to science, to religion and to our larger sense of national unity. The way this debate is proceeding is, in my opinion, completely contrary to the positive pluralism that is the strength of our democracy.

What is needed is to draw back from the polarized positions of political rhetoric and to respectfully reflect on the meaning of the moment we are in.

In the spirit of such a dialogue, and in the hope that it might lead us toward a resolution of our difficult national impasse over embryonic stem cell research, I offer the perspective that follows.

MORAL MEANING OF EMERGING LIFE

Any evaluation of the moral significance of human life must take into account the full procession of continuity and change that is essential for its development. With the act of conception, a new life is initiated with a distinct genetic endowment that organizes and guides the growth of a unique and unrepeatable human being.

The gametes (the sperm and egg), although alive as cells, are not living beings: they are instrumental organic agents of the parents. The joining of the gametes brings into existence an entirely different kind of entity, a living human organism. With regard to fundamental biological meaning (and moral significance), the act of fertilization is a leap from zero to everything.

In both structure and function, the zygote (the one cells embryo) and subsequent embryonic stages differ from all other cells or tissues of the body; they contain within themselves the organizing principle for the full development of a human being. The very word organism implies organization, an overarching principle that binds the parts and processes of life into a harmonious whole. As a living being, an organism is an integrated, self-developing and self-maintaining unity under the governance of an immanent plan.

For an embryonic organism, this implies an inherent potency, an engaged and effective potential with a drive in the direction of the mature form. By its very nature, an embryo is a developing being. Its wholeness is defined by both its manifest expression and its latent potential; it is the phase of human life in which the `whole' (as the unified organismal principle of growth) precedes and produces its organic parts. The philosopher Robert Joyce explains: ``Living beings come into existence all at once and then gradually unfold to themselves and to the world what they already but only incipiently are.'' To be a human organism is to be a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens, with a human present and a human future evident in the intrinsic potential for the manifestation of the species typical form. Joyce continues: ``No living being can become anything other than what it already essentially is.''

It is this implicit whole, with its inherent potency, that endows the embryo with continuity of human identity from the moment of conception and therefore, from this perspective, inviolable moral status. To interfere in its development is to transgress upon a life in process. The principle of this analysis applies to any entity that has the same potency as a human embryo produced by natural fertilization, regardless of whether it is the product of IVF, cloning, or other processes.

Accrued moral status

The major alternative to the view that an embryo has an inherent moral status is the assertion that moral status is an accrued or accumulated quality related to some dimension of morphology or function.

The three arguments currently given in support of a 14 day limit on embryo research--lack of differentiation, lack of individuation and pre-implantation status--are based on a kind of `received tradition' that dates back to the 1986 Warnock Commission in the UK. But this commission explicitly acknowledged the continuous nature of embryonic development, stating: ``There is no particular part of the developmental process that is more important than any other.'' In a recent memoir, Mary Warnock discussed the utilitarian grounding of her commission's analysis acknowledging that her committee's task was ``to recommend a policy which might allow the sort of medical and scientific progress which was in the public interest.'' Indeed, recent advances in embryology do not support this commission's conclusions.

The argument on differentiation is based on the idea that before gastrulation (which begins around the 12th to 14th day with the formation of the primitive streak), the embryo is an inchoate clump of cells with no actuated drive in the direction of distinct development.

It is argued that the undifferentiated quality of the blastocyst (the 4-5 day embryo) justifies its disaggregation for the procurement of stem cells, while the evident organization at gastrulation reveals an organismal integrity that endows inviolable moral status to all subsequent stages of embryological development.

Scientific evidence, however, supports the opposing argument--that from conception there is an unbroken continuity in the differentiation and organization of the emerging individual life, the anterior-posterior axis appears to be already established within the zygote (the one-cell stage); the earliest embryonic cell divisions (at least at by the 4 cell stage) exhibit differential gene expression; the unequal cytoplasmic concentrations of cell constituents in the early embryo suggest distinct cellular fates.

All this implies that the changes at gastrulation do not represent a discontinuity of ontological significance (a change in the nature of being), but merely the visibly evident culmination of more subtle developmental processes at the cellular level that are driving in the direction of organismal maturity.

These new scientific perspetives were documented in a July 2002 article in Nature: ``The mammalian body plan starts being laid down from the moment of conception ..... a suprising shift in embryological thinking.''

Twinning

Another argument for accrued moral status is that as long as an embryo is capable of giving rise to a twin it cannot be considered to have the moral standing of an individual.

Yet monozygotic twinning, which occurs in just one in 240 births, does not appear to be either an intrinsic drive or a random process within embryogenesis. Rather, it results from a disruption of normal development by a mechanical or biochemical disturbance of fragile cell relationships. This provokes a compensatory repair, but with the restitution of integrity within two distinct trajectories of embryological development.

In considering the implications of twinning for individuation, one might better ask the question from the opposite perspective. What keeps each of the cells of the early embryo from becoming a full embryo? Clearly, crucial relational dynamics of position and intercellular communication are already at work establishing the unified pattern of the emerging individual.

From this perspective twinning is not evidence of the absence of an individual, but of an extraordinary power of compensatory repair that reflects more fully the potency of the individual drive to fullness of form even in the earliest stages of embryonic human life.

Implantation

Some have argued that the implantation of the embryo within the uterine lining of the mother constitutes a moment of altered moral status.

Fertilization occurs in the fallopian tubes.

The embryo floats down into the uterus and begins to implant in the uterine wall around the 6th-7th day. All along this journey the diffusion of essential nutrients and growth factors sustains the life and nourishes the growth of the developing embryo. Implantation and the development of the placenta simply extend this relationship between mother and embryo with an internal circulation as the embryo gets too large to be nourished by direct diffusion.

Implantation, then, must be viewed as just another step in a continuum of ongoing intimate dependence, all occuring along the trajectory of natural development that begins with conception and continues into infancy. This continuity implies no meaningful moral marker at implantation.

Function

Most other arguments relate in some way to the onset of a specific function or capacity. Arguments for a change in moral status based on function are at once the most difficult to refute and to defend.

The first and most obvious problem is that the essential functions (and even their minimal criteria and age of onset) are diverse and arbitrarily assigned. Generally they relate to the onset of sentience, awareness of pain, or some apparently unique human cognitive capability such as consciousness.

This approach raises a number of disturbing ethical questions.

--If human moral worth is based on actual manifest functions, then does more of that function give an individual life a higher moral value?

--And what are we to make of the parallel functional capacities in animals that we routinely sacrifice for food and medical research?

--Furthermore, what becomes of human moral status with the degeneration or disappearance of such functions? While we might argue that our relational obligations change along with changes in function, such as occur with senile dementia, we would not sanction a utilitarian calculus and the purely instrumental use of such persons no matter how promising the medical benefits might be.

More fundamentally, from a scientific perspective, there is no meaningful moment when one can definitively designate the biological origins of a human characteristic such as consciousness. The human being is an inseparable psycho-physical unity. Our thinking is in and through our bodily being, and thus the roots of our consciousness reach deep into our development. The earliest stages of human development serve as the indispensable and enduring foundations for the powers of freedom and self-awareness that reach their fullest expression in the adult form.

With respect to fundamental moral status therefore, the human being is an embodied being whose intrinsic dignity is inseparable from its full procession of life and always present in its varied stages of emergence.

This conclusion is consistent with 2,500 years of medical science--as recently as 1948, the Physicians Oath in the Declaration of Geneva, echoing the enduring traditions of Hippocratic medicine, proclaimed: ``I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.''

As we descend into an instrumental use of human life we destroy the very reason for which we were undertaking our new therapies; we degrade the humanity we were trying to heal.

IN VITRO FERTILIZATION EMBRYOS

This brings us to the dilemma of the moral status of an estimated one million embryos left over from in vitro fertalization (IVF). Created to give life, they are now suspended in time and space and the uncertainty of a conflicted fate.

In this canister in the Assisted Reproduction Technologies clinic at Stanford are 300 embryos. The water in their cells has been replaced with glycerol and they are immersed in liquid nitrogen at a temprature of minus 200 degrees Celsius. (I joke with my friend, the director of the lab, that this must be the densest population in human history.)

But the future of these embryos is a poignant problem. In some cases, such embryos have been implanted as long as twelve and a half years after freezing, including one born seven and a half years after its twin. In other cases, there have been custody battles over the frozen embryos after divorces and even a dispute over inheritance when a wealthy couple died in an airplane crash and left several embryonic hiers with numerous couples stepping forward and offering to adopt them. But most of these one million frozen embryos do not have such privileged prospects. They are castoffs, destined to be discarded or disaggregated in the service of medical science.

And this is a warning to us of how even the best intentions of our science, unconstrained by the forethought of moral consideration, slips slowly along the gradient of utility. Each of these embryos, once the precious promise of a happy baby, is now relegated to the category of mere matter, raw material in a larger program of scientific progress.

However much we may agree or disagree with the process that put them there, we should acknowledge that this is a difficult dilemma. Produced with a healing purpose, the good intentions of overcoming the sorrow of infertility, they are now abandoned to a project of a completely different character. Some say that if there is a moral problem it is upstream, in the process that put them there and that now, since they are destined to die, what further harm can be done? As a pragmatic people, many Americans feel the weight of this argument. And, if we fail to develop a morally acceptable alternative source of embryonic stem cells, I suspect that is where our national policy may settle.

Yet even if use of these embryos becomes accepted policy and practice, we should be aware of something more complicated that is below the surface: there has been a slow but steady shift in our underlying attitude toward human life. As we gain the powers of comprehension and control over our most basic biology, there is a transformation, not just in our physical being, but in our whole sense of who we are, and of our place and purpose within the natural order.

As we take increasing instrumental control over natural life processes our attitude changes and we lose the sense of cautionary reverence and respect. With each step, however benevolent the initial intention, there is a moral danger, a fracturing of matter and meaning that breaks the coherence and natural connections of life. With each step, the original radiance and vitality of the cosmos, its order, beauty and coherent moral meaning, are obscured by the conviction that all of living nature is mere matter and information, to be reshuffled and reassigned for the projects of the human will.

This instrumental use of life reaches its most ominous extension as we relegate the human embryo to the status of a resource, as raw material in the service of our project in the mastery over nature. Such an instrumental use of early human life opens a doorway down a long corridor indeed.

For one thing, many of these embryos are not at the developmental state for harvesting embryonic stem cells and would have to undergo further laboratory culture to the blastocyst stage. Will we not want to use some for experiments to perfect the culture medium? And while we are at it, there are many other studies that could be done on early embryos to help perfect IVF.

Thirty years ago, when IVF first came on the scene there was a difficult debate in congress over support of research that involves the destruction of human life. This debate culminated in 1996 with the passage of the Dickey Amendment that forbids federal funding for projects that endanger or destroy human embryos. As with abortion, IVF, involving the creation and implantation or disposal of embryos, would be a matter of personal choice done with private funds.

Will we now retreat and override this decision--or is only embryonic stem cell research urgent enough to justify an exception to this long-standing federal policy? Furthermore, even if we endorse this course of action, the 14-day limit on the use of human embryos will not hold since it does not stand up to logical argument. As discussed above, the designation of fourteen days as the moral boundary for embryo experimentation is in the category of a `received tradition,' almost a superstition in the sense that it is a belief in a change of state without a discernible cause. As a moral marker, fourteen days makes no sense, it is arbitrarily set and therefore vulnerable to transgression through the persuasive promise of further scientific benefit.

BEYOND CELLS

And it is becoming increasingly apparent that the promise of stem cells lies beyond simple cell cultures and cell replacement. The technological goal is to produce more advanced cell types and even tissues, organs, and possibly limb primordia. Producing such complex tissues and organs may require the intricate cell interactions and microenvironments now available only through natural gestation.

During embryogenesis, differentiation and organ formation unfold within the fragile spatio-temporal induction of a highly specific sequence of cell signaling--different signals coming from different sides and in a perfect synchrony of process.

Consider the formation of the human hand. It begins as a small bud induced off the trunk of the embryo, then through an extraordinary orchestration of cell interactions it progressively unfolds toward its functional form. But once initiated (after about the 5-6th week of embryogenesis), the limb bud can actually be severed from the embryo and, given the right environment, will continue its momentum of development as an independent unit.

I have seen just such a hand in the bottom of a test tube. The tiny limb bud, snipped from the fetal remains of a 5 week old aborted fetus, was implanted into the abdominal cavity of a SCID mouse (a special kind of mouse that won't reject the tissue), and grown till it was about 1/4 inch wide. I looked down on that little hand and I thought to myself--this is fantastic, one day we may grow limbs for people with congenital malformations or injuries and amputations. But at the same time I thought--this was going to be someone's little hand, that tender little newborn hand that lays across his mother's breast while nursing.

But if we might one day grow human limbs, we might even more easily grow other organs--kidneys, livers and hearts. Scientists in Isreal have already established that human kidney primordia taken from 7-8 week old aborted fetuses can be successfully grown in mice--a feat proclaimed as ``a breakthrough that might one day help save thousands of patients waiting for transplants.'' (There are 50,000 people in the U.S. alone on dialysis, waiting for kidney transplants--an estimated 17 deaths a day are due to the inadequate organ supply.) Furthermore, several years ago it was announced that a scientist in China successfully sustained in vitro a human heart severed from its source in a 7 week old aborted fetus.

The benefits of implanting embryos in order to employ the developmental dynamics of natural embryogenesis for the production of limb and organ primordia seem self-evident.

The implantation of cloned embryos (either into the natural womb or possibly an artificial endometrium) for the production of patient specific tissue types to bypass problems of immune rejection would further extend the logic of the instrumental use of developing life.

The public pressure that has already been brought to bear on the politics of stem cells and cloning by patient advocacy groups has provoked such a sense of promise that it may propel the argument for allowing such gestation of cloned human embryos.

Over the past four years, I have talked with hundreds of people, including many scientists, who say that they would find such a practice, (that is, the implantation of a cloned embryo) acceptable to save the life of a dying child.

Different people have different limits to the duration of gestation they find morally acceptable, but in light of the current sanction of abortion up to and beyond the end of the second trimester, it is difficult to argue that creation, gestation and sacrifice of a clone to save an existing life is a large leap in the logic of justification. The argument is made that if abortion is legal, that is, if a developing life can be terminated with no reason given, then why not for a good reason? One must admit there is a certain perverse logic to this argument.

WHITE PAPER

In light of the arguments given above that human moral worth is based on a continuity of embodied form from fertilization to natural death, it would seem that we are at an irresolvable impasse. If embryonic stem cells can be obtained only by the destruction of human embryos this may, in fact, be the case. But last May a White Paper by the President's Council on Bioethics suggested otherwise. This report describes four proposals put forward as possible means of obtaining embryonic stem cells without the creation and destruction of human embryos.

As the author of one of the proposals, Altered Nuclear Transfer, I would like to draw on this to discuss the scientific advances and moral reasoning that may lead us to a technological solution to our national conflict.

ALTERED NUCLEAR TRANSFER

As described above, natural conception signals the activation of the organizing principle for the self-development and self-maintenance of the full human organism. In the language of stem cell biology, this capability is termed ``totipotency,'' the capacity to form the complete organism. A naturally fertilized egg, the one cell embryo, is totipotent.

In contrast, the term ``pluripotency,'' designates the capacity to produce all the cell types of the human body but not the coherent and integrated unity of a living being. Embryonic stem cells are merely pluripotent. This is a difference between the material parts and the living whole.

Altered Nuclear Transfer would draw on the basic technique of SCNT (popularly known as ``therapeutic cloning'') but with an alteration such that pluripotent stem cells are produced without the creation and destruction of totipotent human embryos.

In standard nuclear transfer the cell nucleus is removed from an adult body cell and transferred into an egg cell that first has its own nucleus removed. The egg then has a full set of DNA and, after it is electrically stimulated, starts to divide like a naturally fertilized egg. This is how Dolly the sheep was produced.

Altered Nuclear Transfer uses the technology of nuclear transfer but with a preemptive alteration that assures that no embryo is created. The adult body cell nucleus or the enucleated egg's contents (or both) are first altered before the adult body cell nucleus is transferred into the egg. The alterations cause the adult body cell DNA to function in such a way that no embryo is generated, but pluripotent stem cells are produced.

There is natural precedent for such a project. In normal conception, fertilization signals the activation of the organizing principle for the self-development of the full human organism.

But without all of the essential elements--the necessary complement of chromosomes, proper epigenetic configuration and the cytoplasmic factors for gene expression--there can be no living whole, no organism, and no human embryo. Recent scientific evidence suggests incomplete combinations of the necessary elements--`failures of fertilization'--are the fate of many, perhaps most, of early natural initiations in reproduction.

FAILURES OF FERTILIZATION

It is important to realize that many of these naturally occurring failures of fertilization may still proceed along partial trajectories of organic growth without being actual organisms. For example, certain grossly abnormal karyotypes (including haploid genomes, with only half the natural number of chromosomes) will form blastocyst-like structures but will not implant.

Even an egg without a nucleus, when artificially activated has the developmental power to divide to the eight-cell stage, yet clearly is not an embryo--or an organism at all. The mRNA for the protein synthesis that drives these early cell divisions is generated during the maturation of the egg and then activated after fertilization. Like a spinning top, the cells contain a certain biological momentum that propels a partial trajectory of development, but unlike a normal embryo they are unable to bootstrap themselves into becoming an integrated and self-regulating organism.

Some of these aberrant products of fertilization that lack the qualities and characteristics of an organism, appear to be capable of generating ES cells or their functional equivalent. Mature teratomas are benign tumors that generate all three primary embryonic cell types as well as more advanced cells and tissues, including partial limb and organ primordia--and sometimes hair, fingernails and even fully formed teeth. (The white opacities in this x-ray are adult-size molars.) Yet these chaotic, disorganized, and nonfunctional masses are like a bag of jumbled puzzle parts, lacking entirely the structural and dynamic character of organisms. Neither medical science nor the major religious traditions have ever considered these growths to be `moral beings' worthy of protection, yet they produce embryonic stem cells.

These benign ovarian tumors, appear to be derived by spontaneous development of activated eggs. The disorganized character of teratomas appears to arise, not from changes in the DNA sequence, but from genetic imprinting, an epigenetic modification that affects the pattern of gene expression (keeping some genes turned off and others on). In natural reproduction the sperm and egg have different, but complementary, patterns of imprinting, allowing a coordinated control of embryological development. When an egg is activated without a sperm, the trophectoderm (the outer layer in a natural embryo--sometimes called the trophoblast) and its lineages fail to develop properly. In the absence of the complementary genetic contribution of the male, the activated egg is simply inadequately constituted to direct the integrated development characteristic of human embryogenesis.

SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

This example points to another new dimension of our advancing knowledge. Through systems biology, we are beginning to recognize how even a small change of one gene can affect the entire balance of an enormous network of biochemical processes necessary to initiate and sustain the existence of a living being.

Systems biology offers us the view of an organism as a dynamic whole, an interactive web of interdependent processes that express emergent properties not apparent in the biochemical parts. Within this dynamic self-sustaining system is the very principle of life, the organizing information and coordinated coherence of a living being. With the full complement of coordinated parts, an organismal system subsumes and sustains the parts; it exerts a downward causation that binds and balances the parts into a patterned program of integrated growth and development. Partial organic subsystems (cells, tissues and organs) that are components of this larger whole, if separated or separately produced, may temporarily proceed forward in development. But without the coherent coordination and robust self-regulation of the full organism, they will ultimately become merely disorganized cellular growth.

ANT proposes that small, but precisely selected alterations will allow the harnessing of partial developmental trajectories apart from their full natural context in order to produce ES cells.

CDX2

Altered nuclear transfer is a broad concept with a range of possible approaches; there may be many ways this technique can be used to accomplish the same end.

One variation involves the deletion or silencing of a gene essential at the most primary level of coordinated organization. As described in a January 2006 paper in the journal Nature, stem cell biologist Rudolf Jaenisch has established the scientific feasibility of this approach in a series of dramatic mouse model experiments in which he procured fully functional embryonic stem cells from a laboratory construct that is radically different in developmental potential than a normal embryo.

Using the technique of RNA interference, he was able to reversibly silence the gene Cdx2 in the donor nucleus before nuclear transfer to the enucleated egg. And a study just two months ago in the journal Science suggests that it may be possible to achieve the goals of ANT through the preemptive silencing of Cdx2 in the egg even before the act of nuclear transfer, thereby producing the biological (and moral) equivalent of an inner cell mass tissue culture. This article showed that in mice, m-RNA for Cdx2 is present in the egg and asymmetrically distributed in the first cell division after fertilization. This asymmetric distribution of Cdx2 directs the cells at the two-cell stage to form two distinct cell lineages. One of the cells at the two-cell stage goes on to become the trophectoderm and forms the outer layer of the embryo (and later the extra-embryonic membranes, including the placenta). The other cell forms the `inner cell mass' which is the source of embryonic stem cells. By selective silencing of Cdx2, the authors were able to produce an unorganized mass composed exclusively of cells with the character of inner cell mass.

This is the organic equivalent of a model airplane kit without the glue, you have parts but no capacity to form a coherent whole. The gene Cdx2 has been shown in mouse models to be essential for the early integration of organismal function. In the absence of expression of this gene, as with a teratoma, the trophectoderm fails to grow and there is only partial and unorganized cellular process. Lacking one of the two essential cell types, it is the equivalent of trying to sing a duet with only one voice. The coordinated interactions that are essential for embryonic development are simply not possible. Nonetheless, an inner cell mass is produced from which functional embryonic stem cells can be extracted.

It is important to recognize that the improper development of the trophectoderm is not reasonably considered a defect within a part but rather a failure in the formation of the whole. An early embryo does not have parts in quite the same sense as an adult organism or even as a later-stage embryo just a few days or weeks later. Natural embryogenesis is, by definition, the period during which the whole, as the unified principle of growth, produces the parts. The differentiation of parts during early embryogenesis lays down the fundamental axes, body plan, and pattern of integrated organogenesis. An embryo does not have a central integrating part like the brain; rather, the essential being is the whole being. At this stage, a critical ``deficiency'' is more rightly considered an ``insufficiency,'' not a defect in a being, but an inadequacy at such a fundamental level that it precludes the coordinated coherence and developmental potential that are the defining characteristics of an embryonic organism. In testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee on stem cell research, Dr. Jaenisch stated: ``Because the ANT product lacks essential properties of the fertilized embryo, it is not justified to call it an `embryo.'

Many scientists, moral philosophers and religious authorities (including some of the most conservative evangelical and Catholic leaders) have expressed strong encouragement for further exploration of this project. Of course additional animal studies, including some with non-human primates must precede any translation of these findings into practice with human cells.

ADVANTAGES OF ANT

ANT, in its many variations, could provide a uniquely flexible tool and has many positive advantages that would help advance stem cell research.

--Unlike the use of embryos from IVF clinics, ANT would produce an unlimited range of genetic types for the study of disease, drug testing and possibly generation of therapeutically useful cells.

--By allowing controlled and reproducible experiments, ANT would provide a valuable research tool for a wide range of studies of gene expression, imprinting, and intercellular communication.

--Furthermore, the basic research essential to establishing the ANT technique would advance our understanding of developmental biology and might serve as a bridge to transcendent technologies such as direct reprogramming of adult cells.

--Moreover, as a direct laboratory technique, ANT would unburden embryonic stem cell research from the additional ethical concerns of the ``left over'' IVF embryos, including the attendant clinical and legal complexities in this realm of great personal and social sensitivity.

The one remaining link with IVF, the procurement of oocytes, is a subject of intense scientific research and there appear to be several prospects for obtaining eggs without the morally dubious and expensive hormonally induced super-ovulation of female patients. These include the use of eggs left over from IVF, the laboratory maturation of eggs cultured from ovaries obtained after surgical removal or from cadavers, and possibly the direct production of eggs from embryonic stem cells (a feat already accomplished with mouse cells).

CONCLUSION

We are at a crucial moment in the progress of science and civilization. Advances in biology have delivered new powers with extraordinary potential for positive application in both basic research and clinical medicine. Yet, at the same time, these new possibilities challenge the most fundamental moral principles on which our society is based. Clearly, both sides of this difficult debate over embryonic stem cell research are defending something important to all of us. Without a resolution that sustains social consensus, there will be a series of continuing conflicts as our science challenges us with further dilemmas at the boundaries of human life.

The English author G.K. Chesterton had a metaphor that may inform our current situation. Little boys are playing soccer on an island, but at the very edges of the field cliffs go down hundreds of feet to the waves crashing against the rocky shore. The boys are playing, but only in the middle twenty yards--no one wants to do a corner kick. Then someone comes and builds a sturdy fence right at the edges of the field: now they can play within the full field without fear of falling off the cliff.

Our current conflict is like this: science is stalled across a broad front. If we can define with clarity and precision the moral boundaries we are trying to defend, we might open a wider arena of legitimate study without fear of the grave dangers posed by breach of the basic moral principles that sustain our civilization. In provoking just such reflection and clarity of definition, the proposal for Altered Nuclear Transfer sets the foundation for a positive future of scientific advance.

Yet, some will say, ``how can such a tiny clump of cells hold such significance?''

But size is not a measure of moral meaning. It is true, from here these cells are barely visible.

But from here one cannot see the people.

And from here one cannot see the earth.

And from here one cannot even see our galaxy.

Three hundred years ago the French philosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal noted that human existence is located between infinities--between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. He went on to say ``By size the universe surrounds and swallows me up like a dot: by thought I encompass the universe.''

But what kind of thought could encompass the universe? That thought must be a moral thought--that thought must be love.

C.S. Lewis once said that we should answer all of our problems with more love, not less love.

That precious love that nourished and sustained each one of us in the early dawn of our unfolding form.

Now, as we prepare to enter the future with the new powers of our scientific understanding, we should remember the words of St. John of the Cross: ``In the evening of life, we will be judged by love.''

We are all aware of how divisive this issue has been. I believe that there are areas of common ground where people can come together and reconcile what appear to be two opposing opinions. This is the ground on which I have built my legislation.

The HOPE Act is the only bill up for debate which would not be in danger of a Presidential veto. This means that my bill is the only way we can actually move the science forward for at least the next two years.

What this debate is really about is what the American public gets at the end of the day. When all the votes are cast, what can we say to the patients who visit us who want cures for terrible diseases? Some members would focus on adult stem cells and some would leave all the promise with embryonic stem cells. But a balanced and measured approach would give the Federal Government the opportunity to support both.

At the end of the day, one bill is destined for the garbage bin. It sounds harsh, but it's a fact that the President will veto it. Maybe it can be dusted off in 2009 with a new administration, but in the meanwhile, we're wasting time. The HOPE Act actually has a chance of becoming law and putting the force of Federal support into pluripotent stem cell research that can benefit patients in the very near future.

My bill incorporates all of the most promising current scientific advancements which adhere to ethical principles, induding methods using adult stem cells and some using embryonic stem cells.

Since 2001, the Federal Government has funded human embryonic stem cell research using only lines created before August 9, 2001. No embryonic stem cell lines created after 2001 were eligible for funding. Although the White House could change their policy at any time, they haven't. Currently, only 20-21 lines are eligible, down from an original 60.

There are already several methods proposed for deriving pluripotent cells without harming human embryos.

Research involving ANT, naturally dead embryos or single cell biopsy has never before received Federal funding. Our bill would allow these methods to be considered for Federal funding and specifically direct the NIH to establish guidelines to carry out this research. Similiar guidelines or requests for research proposals, RFPs, do not currently exist.

Additionally, my bill provides funding to start the process of developing a stem cell bank. By opening banks to store amniotic and placental cells, this bill will make available a greater variety of stem cells. Different types of stem cells are used in different types of treatments. Anthony Atala has told us that ``So far, we've been successful with every cell type we've attempted to produce from these stem cells. The AFS cells can also produce mature cells that meet tests of function, which suggests their therapeutic value.''

Bottom line--This bill moves the United States one step further towards widespread use of stem cells for treatments for a variety of diseases.

Opponents tell us that this bill doesn't do anything new. This is just not true. In addition to what I've mentioned above, there is scientific proof that these alternatives can create quality, new embryonic stem cell lines.

In fact, one of these methods, using naturally dead embryos, has already produced at least one new embryonic stem cell line which is currently available in a stem cell bank and under your bill would now be eligible for Federal funding. Donald Landry, Chief of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics at Columbia University, says that increasing the number of stem cell lines created this way would be just a matter of effort.

According to this well-respected researcher, there could be a continuous supply of new embryonic stem cell lines using stem cells derived from naturally dead embryos. The same could be said for other methods:

When the dust clears, The HOPE Act is the only bill up for consideration which will give the American public new research for their tax dollars. Under The HOPE Act, a continuous supply of pluripotent stem cell lines would be available for Federal funding.

We are at a point where there is this great debate in this country over, not the issue of stem cell research but, simply, the source of the stem cells and then the Federal funding of the stem cells. That is the reality. That is where we are today. What Senator Isakson and myself and other colleagues are offering is what we believe is a way forward, a way to move the science forward, a way to avoid the culture wars. It is not everything my colleagues who support S. 5, if that would have passed and become law, would have, but S. 5 for many crosses that line, so we can't support it, but we want the research to move forward.

The reality is the science is moving so much faster than the politics here. The science is putting us in a position where we could and should explore the benefits of embryonic research and pluripotent stem cell research without having to cross the moral line. So if S. 30 is passed, the President has said he will not veto S. 30. If S. 30 becomes the law, then, in fact, the amount of Federal dollars available for human embryonic pluripotency research will be far greater than what we have today.

For those out there who are looking for hope--and that is what we call our bill, HOPE--it is hope offered through principled ethical stem cell research. For those who are looking for hope, we are offering some hope. It is not everything. It is not everything that all desire in the area of stem cell research. But the reality of so much of what we are dealing with in stem cell research is about theory. It is about hope.

Let's offer the hope. There is hope of what embryonic stem cells can do. My colleague from Iowa, when he was discounting dead embryo research, said it may take 10 year for that to pan out. Stem cell research of any kind, I have to tell the folks out there, may take 10 year or more. I am not hearing scientists telling me that within the next couple of years we are going to have those therapies which will cure juvenile diabetes or cure ALS or change the situation. We are talking about looking down the road. We are talking about looking at research opportunities in which we want to provide hope. We believe that is the right thing to do.

So my message to my colleagues who support S. 5--my colleague from Arkansas and from Iowa, who talked about he wants to open every door we can--I think we need to push all of them. Well, S. 30 opens a door. It opens a door without crossing the cultural line. It opens the door without being involved in the midst of the battle between those who support embryonic stem cell research and those who support only adult stem cell research. It offers a third way: It offers real dollars and real hope and real opportunity to see if we can make progress. That is our goal.

To my colleagues who support S. 5, at the end of the day if all you do is vote for S. 5, you will cast a vote I am sure in your heart you will feel will be principled, the right message, the right thing to do. But the reality is at the end of the day, there are going to be no more dollars going into Federal research, you are not going to be offering real hope, you will have offered a political statement, but we need to do more.

What Senator Isakson and I have tried to do is offer the opportunity to do more, to say, yes, we will move the science forward. There are going to be critics who say it can't be done. Science is fascinating. Oftentimes it is ``my way or the highway.'' Embryonic stem cells, that is the way; adult stem cells, that is the way; autonuclear transfer, that is the way.

I am not a scientist; I just want to move it forward. I understand we are operating in a world where it is about hope. Let's open this door. Let's put aside the cultural battles and the cultural wars.

One last observation, if I may. The Senator from Iowa talked about trying to put this in context, and said, you know, look at the size, what we are dealing with. This embryo--this is a pin. That is small. What is the value of that? I take this, by the way, from Dr. Hurlbett's work. I can show you the next picture here. You know, if you are on the Moon and you are looking at this from there, this would be kind of small. Then if you are standing--by the way, from here, these people would be about the size of a pin.

Now we are kind of looking at the Earth from far away. If you are looking at that, by the way, from the galaxy, boy, that would be very small. If you are looking at the galaxy from the universe, this would be very small. It is not about size. We are dealing with the human embryo, and there is a moral question some of us want to ask and say that there is a line, but in doing that we want the research to go forward, we want to offer hope, we want to offer opportunity, we want to use science as best we can.

S. 30 offers that opportunity. I would hope all of my colleagues on all sides of this issue would come forward. Some would say, it is not all we want, but we are moving the science forward. Let's do that. And in the end, hopefully real hope will be given and real cures ultimately will be found, and we will have done it in a way that does not engage the cultural ways, does not cross the line that some do not want to cross, but in the end makes real progress with real science.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I want to briefly touch on one other aspect of the bill we have not talked about. I do want to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for articulating what is the basic issue: if we can move science forward without crossing a moral line, if we can avoid the great division in America. Scientific research should be something that as a society we embrace. S. 30 gives us the opportunity to do that. I hope my colleagues from all perspectives on this issue decide they will support S. 30.

One other aspect of S. 30 that is important is there is a provision in the bill that calls for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to look into setting up a national amniotic and placental stem cell bank.

There are three banks of stem cells in this country. I believe Wisconsin has the 21 embryonic stem cell lines of the 78 the President originally authorized. In Minnesota, there is a cord blood cell bank, and there is a bone marrow bank.

What we hope to do, based on research that has recently come to light--Wake Forest has done some of it--is have the use of amniotic and placental stem cells. These are stem cells, by the way, that can be grown in large quantities. They do not produce tumors, which occur in other types of stem cells. The Wake Forest scientists have noted the specialized cells generated from amniotic cells really, in effect, may have--again, this is all potential--but there is the potential to have the kind of elasticity and pluripotency we see in embryonic stem cells--high-flexibility growth potential in many ways resembling human embryonic stem cells.

The hope is to put together a tissue sampling of 100,000 tissues which would then give you the kind of ability to cut across a diversity we do not have today with the research that is going on.

Again, if S. 5 is passed, it will be vetoed, and the science will not be moved forward. But if S. 30 is passed, with the provisions that provide for stem cell research, that will provide for pluripotent research, that will provide for dead embryo research, which would give you, again, the same kind of stem cells you get from any other kind of embryonic stem cells--these are some of the new techniques out there.

In addition, S. 30 contains a provision for moving forward with a national amniotic and placental stem cell bank, which is another opportunity to move the research forward and to move from hope to reality, which is certainly the hope of the authors of this bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Georgia for his leadership and the opportunity to work together on something that I hope is a unifying force for this body. Let's agree where we can agree. I think that is what S. 30 offers.

I listened to the debate on S. 5. I see my colleague, the Senator from Iowa. I do not know if there is a greater champion in the Senate than the Senator from Iowa when it comes to supporting the rights of individuals with disabilities. I worked on disability discrimination when I graduated law school 30 years ago. One of my heroes in this regard has always been the Senator from Iowa.

Coauthor of S. 5 is my colleague from Utah, Senator Hatch. I don't know if there is a man of greater moral integrity in this body than ORRIN HATCH. He is an extraordinary man. He and I have had long conversations about this bill. Good people disagree.

For some of us there is that moral line that says we cannot support Federal funding for the destruction of a human embryo. It is a line that a number of people cannot cross. So what happens is, if we have a concern of just having S. 5--and there is a battle that is being waged there. Again, it will pass. It will pass in this body and pass in the House. Then the reality is it will be vetoed. There will not be enough votes to override the veto. So in the end, those with good intentions who want to move science forward are not going to be able to do that.

This message to those who are suffering from ALS and suffering from juvenile diabetes--the research is not going to be moved forward at all.

A number of my colleagues have put forth S. 30 as an opportunity. Dr. Hurlbut said: We offer one small island of unity in a sea of controversy, a place we can come together and promote the opportunity and support pluripotent stem cell research, research that has the ability to provide the kind of flexible cell material that offers great hope. Again, hope; it offers great hope.

The good news is research is going forward in this area. This research offers an opportunity, not just in the area of stem cell research, but if you talk to some of the scientists, science itself is going to be opened, perhaps, to other advancements. We are going to learn more about stem cells just from doing this research.

I have a chart that lays out what ANT is. This is just one of the options under S. 30. S. 30 would provide Federal funding for research that does not involve the destruction of an embryo. Some of it is dead embryo research. This is ANT. Under the natural process you have a fertilized egg, the egg and sperm, the fertilized egg that becomes an embryo.

SCNT, as I understand it, is the way we got Dolly the sheep. We have a somatic cell from an adult. It was an animal--or it could be from a human. You put that cellular material, which has all the DNA, all that program in the enucleated egg, the egg gets fertilized, and you get an embryo.

What ANT does, and the type of research, among a number of options--there are some thoughts you could reprogram these cells. You could do a range of things, but what you are doing is altering the cell nucleus. It is kind of a key in there, something that unlocks the cell. If you take it out--I think it is CDX2, but I am not a scientist. But what you essentially do if you take that out before you transfer into this enucleated egg, before you put this genetic material with all the DNA and everything in there, in the end what you are going to get is an inner cell mass with all the ability to produce the pluripotent cells that you would get, but there is no embryo, and it doesn't cross the moral line.

The opportunity for this Congress, in a bipartisan way, to support this kind of research is a positive thing.

I see my colleague from Missouri. I have some other comments, but I believe we have some time, and I will use that time later.

I want to reiterate that I hope my colleagues who support S. 5--we simply have disagreement over crossing that line--I hope they can come with us and support S. 30.

My concern is about the House. Last year this body passed a bill similar to S. 5. It also passed the Specter-Santorum bill, which provided, by the way, a number of alternative means of producing cells. Some of those, by the way, are included in S. 5. But, again, S. 5 will not become law.

If you want alternative ways to go forward, you have to support S. 30. The House killed the Specter-Santorum bill. Their approach was, they wanted to have 100 percent of nothing--no alternative ways if they didn't get exactly what they wanted in their bill that was similar to S. 5.

I hope my colleagues who are looking to provide hope will understand there is a path to move the science forward.

There is a path for funding. There is a path to set up, as we have in S. 30, a stem cell bank, a bank of amniotic and placental stem cells. I hope our colleagues in the House do not do a repeat of what happened last year in which an effort to support alternative means was destroyed because they did not get their way in their version of S. 5.

This is an opportunity to come together. It is not a whole package. It is not everything. It is not all the research that will come forward in S. 5 because for some of us, there is a line that we should not cross. But I think all of us can agree we want to support alternative means. We want to support dead embryo research, ANT, reprogramming, and create the opportunity to have more research being done next year than is being done this year.

That is the promise. That is the hope that S. 30 offers.

With that, I see my colleague from Missouri. I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. Will the Senator from Oklahoma yield?

Mr. COBURN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. COLEMAN. I believe the Senator from Oklahoma earlier introduced a RAND study that talked about the number of embryos. I believe there are nearly 400,000 that may be in IVF clinics. Apparently, only 2.8 percent have the potential to be discarded. Is that correct?

Mr. COBURN. That is correct.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for both his passion and his expertise. I think he said this morning--how many babies has the Senator delivered?

Mr. COBURN. A shade over 4,000.

Mr. COLEMAN. This is one Senator who understands the value of life and has a hands-on approach.

It is interesting. President Clinton's bioethics commission concluded, if we have some other alternatives, why wouldn't we use them? They concluded the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research. I believe what is happening is the science is moving faster than the politics, that we have today the opportunity through a number of processes to move forward with pluripotent stem cell research in ways that are less morally problematic, that don't cross a line, that don't cross the line that says we should not have Federal funding for the destruction of a human embryo.

I know my colleagues and friends who support S. 5 quite often have talked about excess embryos that we have and that may not be used for any other purpose. I would ask them to ask these questions. I believe their intent is this narrow intent, but as you look at S. 5, the question raised is, is this the beginning of the production of embryos? If in fact this is the acceptable path to go, why wouldn't we produce embryos that would then get Federal funding to do the research? Is the use of these embryos only for the purpose of stem cell research? Where would we draw the line? Who draws that line? Why wouldn't we use this to study embryonic growth, cell patterns, a whole range of other things? Once we have crossed the line, where does it end? If it is difficult to coax embryonic stem cells into the desired kinds of differentiated type cell types, would we want to allow the embryos to develop longer so we could kind of coax them into later development so we can see that later stage embryos may be a better source of more advanced cells and tissues and organs? Even if we don't do that, if we move down this path, are there other nations or other countries that don't have the kind of moral concerns we have? Why would they not want to go that route?

We have already begun the process. What we offer in S. 30 is a possibility to bring this country together to provide Federal funding for stem cell research that provides the hope of what pluripotent stem cells may be able to do. It sets up a tissue bank for amniotic and placental stem cells which offer great promise without the moral dilemma. At a time when clearly the Nation is divided, we offer a time to come together.

My concern is, last year we passed a bill in this Senate that provided for alternatives, Specter-Santorum. It was rejected in the House. I hope my colleagues don't take an all-or-nothing approach. I hope they don't look to get 100 percent of nothing--nothing meaning that S. 5 is going to be vetoed--and then stop us from at least moving forward with the opportunity to put Federal dollars in research and production doing stem cell research that doesn't cross a moral line.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COLEMAN. In that letter Dr. Grompe talks about what my colleague from Oklahoma just talked about. He talks about producing cells that are immunologically matched to the patient from whom they were derived. He says:

These cells could then be used for transplantation without being rejected by the immune system. It is also expected that these approaches will make the production of pluripotent cell lines technically easier and more efficient than methods that rely on embryos.

Then he goes on to say:

In my own laboratory we would use the alternative methods to produce liver and pancreas cells for the treatment of liver diseases and diabetes.

We have an opportunity under S. 30 to move the research forward, to move it forward in a unified way, a way that avoids the culture wars, avoids the great divide, that has the opportunity for moving forward without dealing with the issues of immune reactions that opens up a vision of hope. This is about hope. S. 30 is hope offered through principled and ethical stem cell research--the HOPE Act.

I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--whatever their position is on S. 5--understand if they want to move the ball forward, if they want to look into the eyes of their constituents and say we are going to give you something, some sense of hope, we are going to move research forward, the only way to do that today is through supporting S. 30. I urge my colleagues to support S. 30.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source