The Democratic candidate for governor is defending UW research using embryonic stem cells. There’s been groundbreaking work on Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, or IPS cells, derived from adult stem cells, at the University of Wisconsin. But Democrat Tom Barrett said Monday that doesn’t mean researchers should be restricted in use of embryonic stem cells. “It was only because of the advances in embryonic cell research that we’ve been able to reach the IPS,” Barrett told reporters during a tour of the Waisman Clinical BioManufacturing Facility on the Madison campus. “To have people tying the hands of the people doing the work here is wrong.”
Republican candidates Scott Walker and Mark Neumann also support stem cell research – but with adult stem cells. Doctor Derek Hei, Technical Director of the Waisman Clinical BioManufacturing Facility says those cells are limited. “They have their place, but they are limited typically in how much we can expand them, and what types of cells we can expand them into,” said Hei. Adult cells can be expanded into things like bone and cartilage, compared to embryonic stem cells which Hei said “theoretically can give us every cell type in the human body, and can be expanded almost indefinitely.”
“The work that’s being done here is being done in a very ethical fashion,” said Barrett. “And to somehow imply that it’s not being done in an ethical fashion is simply dead wrong.”