Washington

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering plans for a repository to house human embryonic stem cells for distribution to US researchers.

The proposed stem-cell bank would hold many of the 64 embryonic stem-cell lines approved for funding under the Bush administration's recent ruling (see Nature 412, 665; 2001).

Tommy Thompson: concedes that fewer than half of the approved lines are ready for use. Credit: AP

Health secretary Tommy Thompson unveiled the plan at the 5 September hearing of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Thompson also conceded at the hearing that only 24 or 25 of the 64 approved cell lines are fully developed and “ready to be sent out to researchers”.

The repository idea is an extension of the NIH's plan to compile a registry of embryonic stem cells, which will initially include the name of each cell line and contact information for the provider. Supporters of the concept say that a repository might ease researchers' concerns about the quality and accessibility of the cell lines that are eligible for funding.

Although the concept is supported by many scientists and scientific organizations, it is unclear whether providers of embryonic stem cells will agree to it. “Some of the entities that have derived stem cells have expressed interest in a repository, others have not yet addressed this idea, and still others have said they are not interested,” says Lana Skirboll, associate director for science policy at the NIH.

Douglas Melton, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard University and an advocate of the repository, told the Senate hearing: “The federal government and the NIH are in an immeasurably stronger position than are individual investigators to obtain the human embryonic stem-cell lines from suppliers, verify their quality, and arrange for their distribution.”

The idea of a human embryonic stem-cell bank is not new. In March 2000, a working group for the Royal Society recommended creating a repository in the United Kingdom, where regulations on stem-cell research are less restrictive than in the United States. In a more recent report, the society said that cell lines would be available to the scientific community on a non-commercial basis, and “funding and ethical permission on stem-cell research could be conditional on any lines being put in the bank”.

The Senate committee's hearing was the first of three scheduled for this month, as senators probe the justification for the Bush administration's policy on the funding of stem-cell research.