The Adventist Church's 'neutral' response on stem cells

[Key Guy]

From the Adventist News Network online

http://news.adventist.org/2009/05/church-chat-the-adve.html

Quote:

While universities and private companies have advanced stem cell technologies with largely private funding, some medical researchers are hoping possible new federal research grants will help spur the next wave of breakthroughs in medical treatment and cures.

What's needed first, however, are more extensive ethical guidelines for conducting such research, particularly with human embryonic stem cells, says Dr. E. Albert Reece, vice president for Medical Affairs at the University of Maryland and Dean of the School of Medicine.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order in March lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Reece, a member of the Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spencerville, Maryland, has a chance to help shape those guidelines -- he serves on the National Academies Human Embryonic Stem Cell Advisory Committee.

He emphasized that his views expressed in this article are his own and not those of the National Academies or the Stem Cell Guidelines Committee.

Stem cells, the building blocks of body tissue, offer the potential to cure many debilitating diseases and heal various injuries, such as burns and wounds, scientists say. Although adult stem cells are already being used for these purposes, treating some conditions, such as neurological diseases, may require human embryonic stem cell to be effective. Previously, this would have required the destruction of an embryo. However, new research, though in its infancy, offers the possibility of using embryonic stems without harming an embryo.

In a phone interview from his Baltimore office, he broke down in simple terms the debate over stem cell research from embryos, which are extras left over after in vitro fertilization, and typically would be discarded.

His extensive qualifications include a medical degree from New York University, Residency at Columbia University, a fellowship at Yale University where he subsequently served as a faculty member, a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, and an MBA from The Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Jamaican native is also a world-renowned expert on the complications of diabetes during pregnancy, and serves as this year's chair of the national council of deans of America's 130 medical schools.

(interview and photo online)