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By PAUL RECER
.c The Associated Press

 
WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers who developed some of the 64 embryonic stem cell lines that can be studied under federal grants say some of the lines they produced may prove unsuitable for further use and others are mired in patenting and licensing issues.


Scientists at Goteborg University in Sweden, which the National Institutes of Health says has 19 cell lines available, said Tuesday that only three are ready for research. The rest are still being processed and have uncertain futures.

``We don't know if all of them ... will become cell lines,'' said Professor Anders Lindahl of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine at Sahlegrenska University Hospital in Goteborg. A stem cell line is established when the cells become a self-replenishing colony, creating generation after generation of identical cells.

``We are on our way,'' he said, ``but I can't say much more.''

In an NIH announcement on Monday, federal officials said a worldwide search had located 64 embryonic stem colonies that met President Bush's criteria for being used in federally funded research. Under Bush's rules, the cell lines had to be in existence on Aug. 9 and had to come from surplus embryos from fertility clinics. The embryo parents also had to have consented, without compensation, to give up the embryos for research.

Lindahl said his laboratory was willing to let its cell lines be used in NIH research but noted: ``We have to be selective.''

He also said patent rights involving the cell lines are unsettled.

At Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which NIH said had five cell lines, officials said the colonies are not scientifically ready for research.

``The cells are not validated,'' said Professor Lars Ahrlund-Richter. ``That is necessary in order to continue with clinical research.''

Ahrlund-Richter said the Karolinska Institute is interested in cooperation and research with U.S. investigators but added: ``We can't sell the cells. That also means that it is not allowed to resell Swedish cells that are exported.''

Rafael Beyar, dean of the faculty of medicine at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, said his institution's four cell lines are ``robust'' and have a demonstrated ability to transform into heart cells and insulin-producing cells.

``We can maintain these cell lines in an immortal way,'' he said, which means the cells have shown they will replenish themselves endlessly.

Beyar said the cell lines may be licensed to U.S. investigators, but there are financial and patent considerations to be resolved.

Embryonic stem cells are the basic building blocks for the 260 or so cell types in the body. During development, stem cells transform into heart, muscle, brain, skin or other tissue.

Researchers hope that by guiding this transformation in the laboratory, they can coax stem cells to make new cells that could be used to treat diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease or other disorders.

Technion scientists, for instance, already reported they have guided stem cells to transform into precursor cardiac cells that in the laboratory dish beat like a heart.

Fifty applications have been filed to conduct research with six cell lines at Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development in Australia.

``We have already executed about a dozen agreements, and we expect that applications will now increase,'' said Martin Pera of Monash.

BresaGen Inc., an Australia-based company with offices in Athens, Ga., has four cell lines on the NIH list, but general manager Meera Verma said guidelines have not been drawn up to give access to outside researchers.

W. Sue Shafer at the University of California, San Francisco, which has two cell lines, said neither has been used in research. Only one has been completely characterized, or scientifically described.

Although she said ``we're eager to make them available to other people,'' Shafer said financial and patent questions have yet to be settled.

At CyThera Inc. of San Diego, which NIH said has nine cell colonies, chief executive Michael Ross said the company's first cell line will not be ready for researchers until next year.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which holds the patent for five cell lines along with a patent on a method for extracting and culturing stem cells, said it already has provided colonies of cells to about 30 researchers.

``We have enough cells from one line to fulfill (the) need of as many as could possibly get federal funding,'' said Andrew Cohn, a foundation spokesman.

Dr. James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin isolated the first human embryonic stem cell line in 1998. As is customary at Wisconsin, Thomson turned over the patents for his work to WARF.

Cohn said earlier that WARF holds a patent on the Thomson technique of creating embryonic stem cells. He said WARF expects to exercise those rights if laboratories use the Thomson technique to derive cell lines.

Associated Press writers Lennart Simmonsson in Stockholm, Sweden; Malcolm Ritter in New York; and Mike Corder in Australia contributed to this report.

On the Net: NIH: www.nih.gov/index.html

AP-NY-08-29-01 0805EDT

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