Stem Cell Science: Hope not Hype
28 June 2006
A public exhibition to help explain the science around stem cells is to tour the country. The health minister, Andy Burnham MP, joined parliamentarians, and scientists from the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in Westminster to view the new exhibition and to discuss stem cell research in the UK.
The exhibition explains how understanding the biology of stem cells offers hope to sufferers of currently incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. It also presents challenges for both policy-makers and scientists in balancing public expectation with scientific reality.
Speakers at the event included Lord Patel, who chairs the Stem Cell Steering Committee, Andy Burnham and two leading scientists in stem cell research, Professor Sian Harding and Professor Tariq Enver who gave an update on their research.
Professor Harding, Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, explained the advances that have been made in the development of embryonic stem cells to generate cardiomyocytes: both human and mouse lines successfully produce beating heart cells. Contraction of these cardiomyocytes is measured by methods adapted from those used for the adult cells.
Professor Tariq Enver from the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit at Oxford described his work trying to understand the molecular events associated with the self-renewal and unilineage commitment of haematopoietic (blood) stem cells, and what goes wrong in leukaemia.
The exhibition has been developed by BBSRC and MRC as part of the research councils’ response to the Pattison report recommendation for a “sustained and coordinated programme of public dialogue on stem cell research over the next decade.” It will kick off with an 8 week spell at the Centre for Life in Newcastle in July.
