케리 후보가 줄기세포 연구에 대한 연방정부 자금 제한 조치를 풀겠다고 공약했네요. 같은날 영국 캠브리지 대학은 360억 규모의 줄기세포 연구센터를 열겠다고 했고요. 그 주역은 미국에서 연구를 못하게 되자 미국을 떠서 영국으로 옮긴 학자군요.

 가정입니다만, 11월 대선에서 케리가 미국 대통령이 되고 캘리포니아주 줄기세포 연구자금 법안( 3 Billion $ 죠 아마?)이 통과되면 미국이 줄기세포 연구에 앞장서게 될 가능성이 높겠군요. 우리나라는 서로 헐뜯느라 정신없는 것 같던데...후후.


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Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Kerry criticizes Bush's ideological stance on science policy
He pledges his support for stem-cell research


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
DENVER

Democrat John Kerry, backed by 48 Nobel Prize winners, criticized President Bush yesterday for allowing ideology rather than facts determine science policies and repeated his pledge to overturn the ban on federal financing of research based on new stem-cell lines.

His restatement of his position on stem-cell research came on the same day that Cambridge University in England said that it will open a center for human-embryonic stem-cell research to develop treatments for currently incurable diseases such as diabetes.

Researchers at the $30 million Stem Cell Institute, described as the world's largest center for this type of research, said they hope to proceed to human testing within five years.

Kerry, speaking at a fund-raiser in Aspen, said, "We need to be prepared, and one of the first things that I will do as president by executive order immediately is ... move America forward to do stem-cell research and begin to find the cures we need."

In a letter endorsing Kerry, 48 scientists who have won the Nobel Prize said that the Bush administration is undermining the nation's future by impeding medical advances, turning away scientific talent with its immigration practices and ignoring scientific consensus on global warming and other critical issues.

"Unlike previous administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, the Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare," their letter stated.

Burton Richter, the 1976 Nobel laureate in physics, said that it was unusual for such a large number of Nobel winners to endorse a particular candidate.

"I hope you take that as a sign of how seriously all of us think the errors of our present course are," Richter told reporters in a conference call arranged by the Kerry campaign.

At Cambridge University, Roger Pedersen, a professor of regenerative medicine, said that the institute will use the newest robotics to speed research.

Pedersen was formerly at the University of California, San Francisco, but left in 2001 after Bush banned federally financed laboratories from doing research that involved the creation of any type of human embryo.

Britain was the first nation to authorize the cloning of human embryos to produce stem cells for research. Last month, it opened the world's first national stem-cell bank, which stores human-embryonic stem cells among others.

Stem-cell research gained renewed attention earlier this month after the death of former President Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. His family called for more research into the disease using stem cells. Fifty-eight senators - including Kerry - sent Bush a letter asking that he relax the restrictions he imposed by executive order in 2001. The White House has rejected those requests.