Madison, Wisc. – Here’s the message from the 2008 World Stem
Cell Summit: The tool kit to repair bodies damaged by disease and trauma is
coming along. Great progress is being made, clinical trials are coming,
treatments are in the pipeline.
The experts gathered here in MadTown, including many of the top
people in stem cell science, industry and advocacy, feel the revolution, it's in the air here. But hold on, it’s going to take more money, and
more time to make sure cell therapies are safe and reliable.
It’s not just the money that’s got to be managed. The expectations
of the public need a reality check too.
Here is a highlight of Monday’s sessions. Peter Kiernan,
board chair of the Reeve Foundation, delivered a stirring keynote address,
fashioned after David Letterman’s Top Ten format. It’s a call to action. Some
of the comments, unless they are in quotes, are MWs.
10. Get politics out of stem cell research. (A familiar
refrain from C Reeve when he was advocate number 1).
9. Recruit a new generation of scientists; bring in young
investigators to a field they may perceive as risky. “Not the size of the
slice, it’s the size of the pie.” (California, getting all the love it deserves
from the stem cell nation for its $3 billion stem cell initiative, is indeed
poised to bring in 600 to 1,000 new scientists in the next year or two.)
8. Get more money for translational research (that’s the
term for moving from the lab to the clinic; in other words, turning science
into medicine. There’s a big “valley of death” getting ideas out of the lab and
into the complex and expensive clinical trial process. Says Kiernan, “We’re
pretty good at picking good ideas – we can pick Secretariat but we can’t get
Secretariat down the home stretch.”
7. Think globally. (That’s already happening, evidenced by
the collaborative spirit of this meeting and by the impressive research from Japan, by the ambitious Chinese research programs
and by first rate work from Europe, Canada
and Australia.)
6. Refocus the debate. It’s not about Dolly the sheep or
cell replacement. (It’s the promise of doing “amazing things.” Says PK, “Lives
are at stake; we’re poised to change the face of the planet.”
5. Educate the press. It’s not about who wins and who loses
(as the media are wont to size things up). “The press is very good at condensing
complexity,” says PK, “But we need to guide them.”
4. Work with industry; collaborate with business. (California is all over this
idea, about to pass out millions in grants to private companies – it’s seen a
wise investment.)
3. Encourage international stem cell banking. (Stem cells
are indeed a public resource; they must be made available all. There are important
social justice issues to deal with, along side ethics and science.)
2. The stem cell community needs to police itself. For one,
it needs to protect stem cell tourists from “fraud science” in overseas
clinics. “I promise you, if we don’t police ourselves, we as a group will be
policed.”
And the number one thing the stem cell community needs, and
soon:
We must achieve a clinical breakthrough. (The public supports stem cell research and has shown a willingness to pay for it. But there has to be sustained progress to sustain support. You can't hurry up and wait forever.)
That’s all for now, more to come. Mad
