Restoring damaged spines, repairing the self-destruction of immune disorders and regrowing organs ? these might be on the far horizon of stem cell research.
Serious work is going on, if slowly, in Maryland and across the nation.
Last March, Maryland set aside $15 million for stem cell research in a virtual vacuum of federal funding.
Today, with Congress considering stepping up to the plate and Gov. Martin O?Malley proposing another $25 million, the Maryland Stem Cell Commission is preparing to award its first round of grants.
“I?m ecstatic. I?m absolutely ecstatic,” said Stem Cell Commission Chair Linda Powers. “We have gotten through, in a thoroughly discussed way, what other states have taken years to get through. The commission members have really bent over backwards to make themselves available and come to all the meetings.”
The commission has completed a scientific peer review of nearly 90 applications for state stem cell funding and is preparing to make decisions on the proposals April 25.
About half of the applicants are expected to receive up to $300,000 for their work, in single- and multiyear grants.
Small change in the big picture, however, as institutions such as Johns Hopkins are pulling in $2.5 million in federal stem cell funding under the limited Bush administration plan.
With that in mind, U.S. Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin announced plans to open up stem cell funding at the federal level.
“Unless we have a national framework, much of this work will not be able to be sustained,” Mikulski said at an announcement last week on the Hopkins campus. “Thank God for private philanthropy and for the states. What it did was keep hope and help alive. … Through their efforts, stem cell work could continue, but with private and philanthropic funds we can only do a small amount of research.”
“Funding should not be limited by ideology,” said Chi Dang, research leader and professor at Hopkins. “Philanthropic support is not a sustainable [framework] for research.”
Hopkins recently received a $58 million private grant for stem cell research, he said, but that can?t be depended on year after year. Government funding tends to be more stable.
Under the current framework, however, Hopkins gets about $2.5 million a year from the federal government for stem cell research ? out of $620 million total federal money.
