It appears that embryonic stem cell research is gaining grounds in the United States as a California-based company has been granted federal permission this week to use embryonic cells to inject eight to ten patients, as part of long-awaited project aimed at spinal cord injury.

 

The company involved in the project is Geron Corp. Its president and chief executive officer, Thomas B. Okarma said the project “is the dawn of a new era in medical therapeutics.”

 

The participants will be partially paralyzed as they can use their hands but not their feet. They will be administered the injection with embryonic cells within 14 days of their injury. As part of the project, they will be monitored for at least one year, after which, if the therapy works, the company hopes to increase the dose and expand the potential candidates for the therapy.

 

Stem cell research has been a subject of controversy from the very beginning, as researchers have traditionally obtained the cells from blatocysts, fertilized eggs that are about five to six days old. More exactly, acquiring embryonic stem cells requires either destroying a human embryo or therapeutic cloning.

 

Critics of embryonic research include Catholic Church, US President George W. Bush and German lawmakers. Bush even banned funding of research that uses newly destroyed embryos. President Barack Obama on contrary said during his campaign that overturning research limits would be a top priority in his administration. He promised to relax restriction on federal financing for stem cell research.

 

There are many scientists supporting this field, saying that the fast-multiplying cells obtained in a human embryo could result in medical advances that save lives. The research has been considered to hold the key to potential treatments, even cures, for such conditions as heart failure, diabetes, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease because embryonic stem cells have the potential to develop into any other cell in the body.

 

Geron hopes the patients injected with embryonic cells will experience signs of improvement like return of sensation or movement in the legs. The experiment will be done in four to seven medical centers around the countries. The injections will be made in the spine at the site of the damage. The company hopes the injected cells will repair damaged nerves, restoring sensation and movement to people who otherwise would have no hope for walking again.

 

Okarma is very optimistic about this project saying that it “marks the beginning of what is potentially a new chapter in medical therapeutics — one that reaches beyond pills to a new level of healing: the restoration of organ and tissue function by the injection of healthy replacement cells. The ultimate goal is to achieve restoration of spinal cord function.”