Living Well

Health

Israelis
alte Strides

U.S. stem cell decision could mean
unding
Technion scienti lc teams.

e 4

IMIP

JESSICA STEINBERG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

,7 :11101=11

Dl: Karl Skorecki, director o
the Tamion Rappaport
Family Institute fir Medical
Research.

Jerusalem

A

s Congress debates the ethics of federal funding for
stem cell research, scientists at the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology hope some of the money will
be headed their way.
U.S. funding would be a boon for Technion researchers, who
have spent three years studying stem cells, the building blocks
for all human tissue.
"Our biggest problem in Israel is funding for the basic
research," said Dr. Lior Gepstein, a cardiologist on the Technion
research team. "If NIH [the U.S. National Institutes of Health]
will help and if there's more work done worldwide, we have a
bigger chance for discovering something than if it's just Lior in
the Technion."
NIH identified 64 stem cell lines in Israel, the United States,
Australia, India and Sweden that met President George W.
Bush's criteria of developing colonies of existing human embry-
onic stem cells.
Israel is at the end of the pack, with four identified stem cell
lines.
Embryonic stem cells have a unique ability to renew them-
selves and develop into specialized cell types in the body.
Scientists hope to use them to produce healthy tissue for people
with debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and
diabetes.

9/14
2001

172

Dr. Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor
of the Technion Faculty of
Medicine and Rai-1)&1711
Medical Ce n ter:

At the Technion in Haifa, Israeli scientists have been research-
ing stem cell applications for curing diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Rafael Beyar, dean of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine
at Technion, said in the short term the limited number of stem
cell lines "allows things to develop at its own pace, and gives
some power to those who have already moved in that direction.
"Personally, we are very pleased with it, it means we will work
very closely with scientists around the world," said Beyar, who
was visiting the American Technion Society offices in
Farmington Hills last week, garnering support for the institute.
"But, in general, I think research should be limited only by
competition and medical ethics, but not limited by the number
of lines."
Dr. Karl Skorecki, a nephrologist who directs the Rappaport
Family Institute for Medical Research at Technion, has been
working on developing stem cells to replace pancreatic cells that
produce insulin, which diabetics lack.
In July, Skorecki's team announced that the stem cells they
had been growing in a petri dish displayed characteristics of the
beta cells of the pancreas. Now his research team needs to devel-
op the requisite number of beta cells and ensure they don't
"poop out" while growing, he said.

Technion Pioneers

Profisso• Rafael Beyar, dean
of the Technion Rappaport
Faculty of illedicine.

Skorecki credits Dr. Joseph Itskovits, a Technion faculty mem-
ber who launched Israel's stem-cell research program, for first
generating the embryonic cells as the "raw material" necessary
for the research.

STEM CELL on page 174