Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - Following an eight year federal ban, the University of Louisville now plans to use human embryonic stem cells in clinical research.
The first of these controversial cells were just released this week by the National Institutes of Health. This is expected to be the beginning of a dramatic increase in research, including the University of Louisville.
For eight years universities were kept from this level of research and now that it's available some may be saying no thanks.
Long awaited human embryonic stem cells were just released for research in the United States at the university level but not every lab will find them useful.
Doctor Roberto Bolli will stay away from them. He says that cardiovascular research has shown they're easily rejected and cause tumors.
Back in March, President Obama reversed an eight year federal ban that limited research on human embryonic stem cells.
They are called Master Cells because they morph into any cell of the body. Paralyzed rats have walked again when injected with them and they could further many areas of research at U of L according to its president.
"We need the ability for some faculty to do research with embryonic stem cells and what Obama did was open it up beyond where it has been," says President Ramsey.
The ethical debate over using stem cells drawn from frozen, fertilized human eggs has been reopened.
Right to life encourages the use of adult stem cells, similar to embryonic stem cells and first used in clinical research at the University of Louisville, where Doctor Bolli and his team are using adult cells to cure damaged pig hearts.
"If you were to ask me if they are going to have any clinical application in terms of treating patients, I would say it's very unlikely," he says.
But for other scientists, the availability of human embryonic stem cells for research may be just what the doctor ordered.
This is first and foremost a research university that receives hundreds of thousands of dollars and that money has brought in some of the best scientific minds in the country.
So there will be stem cell research at U of L but only in areas, as Doctor Ramsey indicated, where up until now that research has been limited.
