International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCBB:ISCO), www.internationalstemcell.com, announced today that the recent action of a federal district judge blocking federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is not expected to have negative effects on ISCO's therapeutic programs using its human parthenogenetic stem cells.
According to ISCO's Chairman Ken Aldrich, "Because we have never depended on federal or state money to fund our research, the new ruling is simply not applicable to any of our programs in the US or any of our international efforts. Although we believe anything that restricts legitimate scientific research is detrimental to science and our Country and hope the ruling is quickly reversed, the ruling could in a strange way benefit ISCO by creating additional incentives for researchers to use our parthenogenetic stem cell lines."
Because ISCO's technology, parthenogenesis, does not destroy or damage a viable human embryo, its parthenogenetic stem cell lines ("hpSC") offer an alternative way to continue research previously done with embryonic cell lines without raising ethical issues about the destruction of life. Published peer-reviewed papers have shown hpSC to be "pluripotent," a characteristic shared with embryonic stem cells that allows them to become tissues leading to all the cells found in the human body. Therefore, ISCO's hpSC lines offer an alternative to the ethical issues that continue to be problematic for embryonic stem cells.
When enacted, legislation prohibiting the creation of a human embryo for research purposes prohibited both successful methods, such as fertilization, as well as less understood methods such as parthenogenesis. Parthenogenetic methods since developed by ISCO do not create human embryos that could become viable human beings, yet can result in pluripotent hpSC lines with potential therapeutic value. "The recent court ruling may cause Congress to revisit its legislation. If so, then ISCO's research showing its hpSC lines present an alternative to embryonic stem cells, without raising the ethical concerns about the creation or destruction of viable human life, may lead to Congress allowing federal funding of hpSC in future legislation. ISCO would then be free to provide hpSC lines to federally-funded researchers and move more of our work back into the US from foreign jurisdictions," said Jeffrey Janus, Senior Vice President of ISCO and one of its founders.
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