We saw some very timely news this week related to scientific research and funding with President Barack Obama’s decision to end embryonic stem cell research bans in the US. This decision has brought both rejoice from the science community and controversy from those that do not stand behind stem cell research. 

We analyze the issue from three different perspectives:

• Economy: Former President George W. Bush didn’t directly prohibit the research on embryonic stem cells but banned the public finance of the research which was enormously inhibiting. Some scientists believed this limitation had a negative impact on competition, since they had to spend more time finding alternative financing and the research therefore suffered, given funding fuels the competence of scientific research overall. The lack of this public funding for embryonic stem cell research has put the US eight years behind. Countries like the UK have taken advantage of this and they have the most relevant experts in the area.
• Scientific: The use of stem cells can become a cure for those diseases in which etiology is cell destruction or malfunction. This is the case of pathologies such as Alzheimer, Parkinson or diabetes, among others. However, why use embryonic stem cells when adult stem cells are able to do the same thing?  Scientists claim that all the research on new treatments with stem cells is based on the comparison of the properties among both types of stem cells.  Adult stem cells also do not maintain all pluri-potential properties attributed to embryonic stem cells which can be restrictive in their use in the cure of some diseases.
• Moral: Stem cell research is a very controversial issue for several different reasons. The main issue has to do with research on embryonic stem cells needing an embryo that will have to be destroyed.  However, this issue can be rectified because there are techniques that can avoid that embryo’s destruction.

Science is meant to discover and develop things that make our life easier and better and sometimes, longer (if we can find cures to diseases such as Parkinson or Alzheimer, for example). The embryo cell technology can lead to the cure of many diseases and help many people. However, medical innovation is not all about federal funding. As Scott Gottlieb, M.D puts it even though the measure has been followed by an increase of the NIH budget by $10,4 billion the process to transform a the basic research into a useful therapy finds new barriers when they have to be approved by the FDA.

It seems that President Barack Obama’s decision is a step forward towards on embryonic stem cell research, however it looks like there are many other battles to fight before we can see therapies available soon, at least in the US.