For the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to invest its $3 billion in studying newts, rather than building new science buildings on every state campus, might seem the best way of understanding regeneration, but that would be hard to explain to California's voters, who have been assured stem cell cures are just around the corner.
BioMark cells, Brown told patients, were free from the "right-to-life issues" slowing the development of stem cell cures in the U.S. The cells did not come from embryos, but from blood harvested from umbilical cords after childbirth.
So much for stem cells curing Alzheimer's".
Based on this capability, new therapeutic approaches have been developed using mesenchymal stem cells to cure glioblastoma.
At first, the issue roiling the Bush White House was framed narrowly: Should the federal government sponsor scientific research using embryonic stem cells to cure diseases?
Other subjects included the mathematics of a leopard's dots, the evolutionary roots of dancing, and how stem cells could cure dementia.
"For those who say there is not much evidence that embryonic stem cells can cure diabetes, there you go," said Dr. Camillo Ricordi, director of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, who was not involved in the research.
"We don't know enough about Alzheimer's to even think about how to use embryonic stem cells to cure the disease, let alone to reconstruct the brain," he said.
Backers of a House bill, approved last week, that would loosen the limits on federal support for the research argue that there is now a "ban" on financing, that embryonic stem cells will cure tens of millions and that current federal policy sets American scientists behind their foreign counterparts.
In 2014, the N.I.H. was planning to offer new money to stimulate research proposals in a dozen areas, including how to speed up the use of stem cells to cure Parkinson's and other diseases, how to better manage pain in sickle-cell disease and how to improve early diagnosis of autism.
