FIC Blog

To the surprise of no one, the state stem cell committee charged with disbursing $100 million of public funds has decided that preference should be given to scientists whose research will include the cloning and killing of human embryos:

First dibs on $20 million in state stem cell funds should go to scientists working with human embryonic cells that are ineligible for federal funding, the state stem cell research advisory committee decided Tuesday…

While scientists who work on stem cells in animals will be able to apply for funds, most committee members endorsed the idea that priority for funds should go to scientists working with human embryonic cell lines that are not approved for federal funding.

“This was clearly not intended to be a global source of funds for research,” said Dr. J. Robert Galvin, the state public health commissioner and chairman of the committee.

There was one possible bright spot:

Some scientists and administrators at both Yale and UConn had assumed each school would submit a single proposal encompassing research efforts of many of their scientists. However, a tentative proposal to limit grants to individual UConn researchers to $100,000 appeared to rule out an ambitious and controversial plan by Xiangzhong “Jerry” Yang, director of UConn’s Center of Regenerative Biology in Storrs, to clone human embryos to create embryonic cells that would be a genetic match to individual patients.

The key phrase, of course, is “appeared to.” And it is still full-speed-ahead for the less “ambitious” plans to use our tax dollars to clone human embryos.