Cancer researcher gets state funds to study umbilical-cord stem cells

Published: 2006-07-20

CHICAGO (CNS) -- A cancer researcher at an Illinois Catholic medical center is working to grow umbilical-cord stem cells in his laboratory, using $1.4 million in funding from the Illinois Regenerative Medicine Institute. Dr. Patrick Stiff of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood hopes to use the umbilical-cord stem cells to develop new immune cells, to be implanted first in mice and then, if all goes well, in humans. Although the Catholic Church is not opposed to stem-cell research using umbilical-cord blood, the Catholic Conference of Illinois opposes the institute, which Gov. Rod Blagojevich created last year with a $10 million line item in the budget after he failed to win legislative approval. Zach Wichmann, assistant director of the conference, said the public policy arm of the Illinois Catholic bishops opposes both the purpose of the institute, which awards grants for projects dealing with embryonic as well as nonembryonic stem cells, and the back-door process used by the governor to create it. "Even if all the money went to adult stem-cell research, the process was still wrong," Wichmann said. The church opposes embryonic stem-cell research because it involves the destruction of embryos.

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