Stem cell research rules require donor consent

— -- The National Institutes of Health unveiled final rules Monday designed to unlock the restrictions on federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells.

The new rules will primarily finance research on stem cells donated by fertility clinic patients "who gave voluntary written consent for the human embryos to be used for research purposes." Donors must not receive payment for the embryos or expect medical or financial benefits later, the rules state.

Older stem cell colonies, called "lines," including those eligible for grants during the Bush administration, will be reviewed for possible funding by a new panel of scientists and ethicists.

In March, President Obama overturned a decision by President Bush in 2001 to limit federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research to 21 lines created before that date. Bush and other opponents of the research, such as Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C., decried the destruction of embryos necessary to obtain the cells.

Obama called for new, rigorously enforced guidelines to open funding to newly established cell lines.

"We anticipate a substantial expansion of stem cell research," says acting NIH director Raynard Kington. He noted that work on donated cells would also be reviewed by the science/ethics panel.

Human embryonic stem cells are precursors to all specialized tissues, including blood, brain, bone and all organs. Lab researchers first grew them from embryos in 1998. Medical researchers have since looked to the cells to study organ development, test drugs and, most famously, grow rejection-free replacement organs for patients with diabetes, paralysis and other ailments.

"I'm confident we'll have hundreds of additional cell lines," says George Daley of Children's Hospital Boston, a former head of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. "Coming forward, we should see great advances for stem cell science."

The NIH received roughly 49,000 comments on a draft version of the rules in April. "The comments filed by tens of thousands of Americans opposing the use of taxpayer funds for destructive embryonic stem cell research were simply ignored," Doerflinger says.