Minnesota stem cell work might pose problem for Candidate Pawlenty

If Gov. Tim Pawlenty is to run for president, and by all indications he will, […]

If Gov. Tim Pawlenty is to run for president, and by all indications he will, then he might want to think about the University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute.

To win the GOP nomination, Pawlenty, largely considered a moderate Republican, needs to win over conservative Christians who form the base of the party. And probably no other issue other than abortion fires up the base like embryonic stem (ES) cell research.

Scientists prize ES cells for their ability to form any kind of tissue. But religious conservatives object to such research because the cells are harvested from human embryos. In 2001, President Bush restricted federal funding to existing ES lines. President Obama loosened some of those restrictions last year.

Aware of the controversy, the university has treaded carefully around the issue. According to the Stem Cell Institute website, the school is studying ways to coax ES cells into pancreatic cells to treat diabetes and blood, and immune cells to fight cancer. The university even has a lab to make new ES lines, but it is not currently active.

Institute Director Jonathan Slack says the ES work does not receive federal money and is backed by private sources.

But is it as simple as that? After all, the university is a state-funded institution that receives most of its budget from Minnesota taxpayers. Does any of that money flow, even indirectly, into helping ES research?

“The budget is very complicated,” Slack says, noting the institute is supported by four of five core budgets associated with the medical school.

This could prove tricky for Pawlenty who needs to prove his pro-life credentials to the Republican base. Even if Minnesota does not fund the institute in any shape or form, the state still wields enormous influence over the university just by controlling its purse strings. By contrast, the issue might not be as relevant to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney because Harvard University, home to one of the nation’s largest ES cell bank, is a private school.

In 2008, Pawlenty did veto a bill that would’ve funded ES research with state money. But will that be good enough to satisfy conservatives as long as the university continues to pursue ES technology?

Pawlenty also said at the time that new technologies, such as a method that could turn adult skin cells into ES-like “induced pluripotent stem cells,” made harvesting embryos irrelevant.

Again, not so simple. While pluripotent stem cells is a promising area, researchers still need ES cells, especially to act as a control group, Slack said. In other words, scientists need something to measure the new technology against.

So we know two things: The state’s top university uses embryos for stem cell research, and Pawlenty might run for president. How will those two things mesh, if they mesh at all?

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