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Differences of opinion on the ethics of funding embryonic stem-cell research provoked the most heated debate on EU health research.
A meeting of competition ministers ended last month with the approval of limited funding for research using human embryonic stem cells under the Seventh Framework Programme for research (FP7). Poland, Austria, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia however won a promise that the money will not go to projects involving cloning embryos, or creating embryos purely for stem-cell research.
The proposal now has to go to a second reading.
What is stem-cell research?
- The human body contains more than 200 types of cell, including brain cells, skin cells and nerve cells.
- In the early stages of an embryo these many different cells all develop - or stem - from the same basic cell type: known as a 'stem cell'.
- At this stage a stem cell could develop into any other type of cell.
- After a few days, however, only some kinds of stem cell retain their ability to continuously develop and divide themselves.
- Skin and bone marrow transplants are forms of stem-cell surgery based on the regenerative capacity of adult cells.
- Adult stem-cell research focuses on trying to find out how cells like skin, bone marrow and blood can repair themselves. Scientists hope that ultimately this knowledge could be applied to non-regenerative cells like heart and brain tissue.
- Diseases that researchers hope could be cured through stem-cell research include Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, muscle damage and spinal cord injuries.
- Embryonic stem cells, according to many scientists, offer more hope of a breakthrough because they have not yet been programmed to produce only one type of cell.
- Research into embryonic stem cells however raises ethical questions. The embryos needed can only be obtained either by cloning human embryos, or by using surplus pre-embryos - eggs artificially inseminated outside the womb - from in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Differences of opinion on the ethics of funding embryonic stem-cell research provoked the most heated debate on EU health research.
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