San Francisco

The American Red Cross has refused to accept the first federal grant to be awarded in the United States for research using human embryonic stem cells.

The award was a $50,000 supplement to an existing five-year grant for leukaemia research using mouse embryonic stem cells, given to a team led by Robert Hawley of the Red Cross's Holland Laboratories in Rockville, Maryland.

After the National Institutes of Health announced the award on 8 February, American Red Cross chief scientific officer Jerry Squires issued a statement saying that the organization had revised its research priorities and would decline the money.

This explanation met with deep scepticism from scientists familiar with using stem cells. To refuse a grant already awarded is extremely rare, says Lawrence Goldstein, a cell biologist at the University of California, San Diego, who uses mouse embryonic stem cells. “Why, after going through all the trouble to apply, they would turn around and refuse the money is beyond me,” he says.

Hawley's five-year grant, which lasts until 2006, is to study genes involved in the differentiation of mouse blood precursor cells. According to Goldstein, confirming the results in human cells would be a logical extension of such work. Hawley did not respond to a request for an interview.

Several researchers speculated that the American Red Cross — still smarting from a public row over its distribution of funds gathered after the 11 September tragedy, and the subsequent departure of its president, Bernadine Healy — wanted to avoid being the first to take funds for research using human embryonic stem cells. “Maybe they just didn't want one more controversy,” says Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.