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“Australia will have the world’s first dedicated adult stem cell research centre following the announcement of a $22million grant to Queensland’s Griffith University”, said  Nationals’ Leader in the Senate, Senator Ron Boswell. “The grant to researchers led by former Queenslander of the Year, Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, follows a visit to their laboratory facility by the Health Minister, Tony Abbott  in March last year.  Cells from the nose can be grown into nerve, heart, liver, kidney and muscle cells.  The Griffith team are already using their established cell line populations to investigate Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, Motor Neurone Disease, mitochondrial disease and epilepsy.   Adult stem cells from the nose can be collected in minutes, grown into their hundreds of thousands in weeks and are a ‘match’ from the patient they come from.

 Senator Boswell said: “Adult stem cells are an efficient, reliable and ethically sound alternative. I congratulate Professor Alan Mackay-Sim and Professor Peter Silburn for their dedication to science and am confident that this funding will provide the resources to lead the world in adult stem cell research to help humanity.” The new centre will position Griffith University and  Australia as world leaders in adult stem cell research and develop collaborative links throughout the country with leading adult stem cell researchers. Professor Mackay-Sim said the centre would improve the ability to treat diseases by growing stem cells and identifying the cellular and genetic causes of disease. This will lead to new targets for drug discovery.  The centre will also supply specific cells for human cell transplantation and tissue reconstruction. The centre will be part of Griffith’s Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies which houses powerful capabilities for high throughput screening for drug development.

Embryonic Stem Cells frauds

The South Korean government has indicted embryonic stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk  and his colleagues on charges of fraud and embezzlement. While adult stem cells are being used to treat over 70 different diseases, more frauds are being uncovered in the work of Dr.  Hwang. In their research, he and his colleagues used five times more than the 427 human ova that they claimed: 2,236 ova were taken from 136 women. Egg donations take advantage of women, especially the poor, and can lead  to coercion. Hanyang University Medical Center gave Hwang's teams human eggs for its research without the consent of donors, a violation of the nation's bioethics laws. Two women  have filed a lawsuit against Hwang's team saying they had not been properly informed about the medical risks that accompany the painful egg donation procedure. The international hub Hwang and his team envisioned for embryonic stem cells research never got off the ground because of the international scandal surrounding the teams falsified embryonic stem cell research. Now the hub will be turned into a gene therapy clinic focussing on adult stem cells instead.