OUGHTN'T A FUTILE GESTURE AT LEAST BE INEXPENSIVE?:

Reality check for stem cell optimism (Mary Engel, December 3, 2006, LA Times)

Two years after California voters authorized $3 billion in bonds to fund stem cell research, the institute created to oversee the enterprise has just begun what experts see as a long and slow scientific journey. Even with the $150-million state loan approved recently to kick-start work stalled by legal challenges, there are no breakthroughs in sight. Gone are the allusions to healing such afflictions as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases that dominated the 2004 campaign for Proposition 71. In fact, scientists say, there is no guarantee of cures — certainly not any time soon — from the measure that was optimistically titled the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act.

Set for final approval at UC Irvine this week, the draft plan is clear: "It is unlikely that [the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine] will be able to fully develop stem cell therapy for routine clinical use during the 10 years of the plan."

Instead, the top goal is to establish, in principle, that a therapy developed from human embryonic stem cells can "restore function for at least one disease."

That would be only the first step toward persuading pharmaceutical or biotech companies to fund expanded clinical trials, a process that takes years and millions of dollars. Fewer than 20% of potential therapies that enter trials make it to market.

You mean, Christopher Reeve isn't going to get up out of that chair and walk?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 9, 2006 7:57 AM