NIH Research: Recent Progress and Future Promise of Human Embryonic Stem Cells

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) hosted a one-day scientific symposium, NIH Research: Recent Progress and Future Promise of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, on June 12, 2003, on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. U.S.A.

Remarks by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director, NIH

I would like to thank you all for coming. I know this has been stem cell week in Washington.

You had an international meeting downtown; as you know the GM Research Foundation organized. And we hosted two days of presentations on stem cell research here on the campus.

And today, this symposium; so actually I'm very pleased. There is no better way to assess the state of the science than to have the best scientists who are really doing it assembled in one place interacting with each other.

I really feel that the progress that has been made over the past two years has been remarkable.

I actually remember when I made the decision in my previous life at Johns Hopkins that we were going to focus our energy on stem cell biology and its applications. Very early at a time when I think it wasn't as obvious to anybody that it would be either as promising as we now know and that it wouldn't be necessarily as supported as it is now.

I don't think we could have assembled in an auditorium more than 30, 40 people, who really were advancing the field. I'm really pleased to see, I understand that the auditoriums downtown and here are full of interested scientists. And that is a good sign, because in my view, I think my personal focus is on how to move this field of research forward, how to energize it. And one of the very first things I did when I came here was to establish a trans-NIH stem cell task force.

And I would like to recognize and thank Dr. Battey for his efforts over this year. And my goal was to place the research agenda in the front of all our activities. Let's understand the roadblocks, let's understand the requirements, and all of the needs that are absolutely critical to advance this field as rapidly as possible.

As a scientist, also, I was very, very early aware of the humungous difficulty that this field presents in terms of science opportunities, but difficulties in understanding the complex systems that we're talking about.

And you've heard here today about the difficulties in having technologies and methods of characterization, fully understanding the differentiation process. One of the works that I know was presented during those two days that I couldn't attend that I was very interested in was the work of Doug Melton and Ihor Lemischka trying to completely understand the gene expression patterns of these cells at all stages of development.

We are very early in that analysis and from my discussions with the scientists it is clear that we aren't even finding the same gene expression patterns from the two groups of investigators. There is no doubt that without that fundamental progress done as quickly as possible it will be very difficult for anyone to push the field as fast as we can.

So we need to again focus and get down to business. And our business is to build a foundation of facts because there is a lot that we need to learn here and that is how this field will move forward. Without that strong foundation not just of grants, but of people, scientists, creative teams that will come together to address those issues one by one, and rapidly exchange that information, I think the field will be slowed down and we do not want that.

And I have a personal commitment and NIH is fully committed to accelerate the field as fast as we can and provide the resources to do so. There is no question that as you do this, that training is critical. As I went around laboratories and I know some of you have hosted me in terms of understanding the difficulties, I was actually awed by the difficulty of understanding culture conditions, what exactly you need to do.

There is a little bit of empiricism in the field right now. We need to rationalize that empiricism and make that knowledge available across the world for rapid induction, if you will, of scientists into this field, who at the present time are quite daunted by the amount of difficulty and the activation energy that is required to go into this field.

That is why we funded multiple supplements for existing scientists, and you saw today how the signs of mouse embryonic stem cells is rapidly transforming itself into useful insight for human embryonic stem cells and I'm pleased to see that. But we do want to encourage these applications.

You've seen the multiple RFAs that the NIH institutes in a consortium have put together focused on fundamental roadblocks that need to be understood, where the complexity of our challenge needs to be expressed as a research agenda that is bold and that will continue to advance as rapidly as we can make it advance.

So, given the relatively early stages of this research, there is no question that a lot has to be done. We need your input, we need your support, we need your wisdom in terms of how to do this best. There are challenges; host factor interactions is something that I know that become a real issue when you are dealing with xenotransplantation and understanding that, the methodologies to understanding that, in my mind, are not mature at this point and we need to make an investment in those areas of research.

So, in closing, I just want to say, number 1, I am very pleased that these events occurred here in Washington and NIH could participate. Number 2, I'm very pleased to see the work of the community within the trans-NIH stem cell task force; everyone has been very, very helpful. Every time I ask for advice I get direct advice about all issues that relate to this field. We are pushing all fronts of this research: adult, embryonic, every aspect of it.

And I just personally want the science to drive the agenda here and make sure that we do not encounter factual roadblocks that are not addressed. That's my message to you and I just wanted to thank you for coming to NIH. I know you are grantees and we couldn't do our job without you leading the effort and creativity and applying for the grants and the ideas and teams that you are leading. So, again, thank you very much.

Good luck and Godspeed in this tremendously important field.

Posted: October 6, 2003