Stem Cell Research Timeline

In 1961, the researchers conducted experiments involving the transplantation of bone marrow cells into mice that had previously received radiation. Several days later, they observed bumps on the spleens of the mice that had received transplants and discovered that each lump contained a colony of cells capable of giving rise to the multiple cell types that make up human blood. These landmark findings provided the first description of blood-forming stem cells.

On July 12, 1974, President Richard Nixon signed the National Research Act (Pub. L. 93-348) into law, which legally created the Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. On August 23, 1974, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare formally approved the operational charter, allowing the group to begin its official work.

The 1975 regulations were jointly published in the Federal Register on August 8, 1975 (40 FR 33526) with the report and recommendations of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Research on the Fetus.

The EAB had recommended federally funded investigations into the safety of in vitro fertilization using human embryos developed in vitro for no more than 14 days, but a de facto moratorium halts federal funding of human embryo research due to the EAB''s disbanding.

Despite support for embryonic research, the Department of Health and Human Services accepts the testimony of three conservative dissenters who argue that embryonic research would lead to an increase in abortions, and in response, extends the moratorium on this research. 1988 Moratorium: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enacted a ban on federal funding for all research using fetal tissue from induced abortions.

In 1990, congressional efforts to lift the federal ban on using aborted fetal tissue for medicinal stem cell research were blocked when President George H.W. Bush vetoed the legislation. This extended the moratorium indefinitely until the Clinton administration later reversed the policy.

By eliminating the ban, Clinton allowed researchers to utilize federal funds for transplantation studies that had the potential to treat serious illnesses like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. This historic reversal was formalized shortly after through the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993, which officially codified the policy into law.

In December 1994, despite receiving recommendations from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel to fund human embryo research, President Bill Clinton agreed with the demands of thousands of letters and halted federal funding. He specifically blocked the NIH from supporting research involving the creation of human embryos for experimental purposes. Following this executive halt, Congress enacted the Dickey-Wicker Amendment in 1995, which formally codified the ban on using federal funds for the destruction, creation, or discarding of human embryos. This marked the beginning of a complex, decades-long debate on the ethics of federal.

The amendment prohibits the use of federal funds for "the creation of human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero."

This breakthrough was published in the journal <i>Science</i> in November 1998. This discovery also initiates the ethical debate on human embryonic stem cell research because his team derives the stem cells through a process that destroys human embryos. In 2007, Thomson's lab developed Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to bypass embryo use.

The opinion determined that stem cells were not "human embryos" under statutory definitions, thereby allowing federal funding for research using existing hESC lines. NIH Director Harold Varmus receives a legal opinion from DHHS general council Harriet Rabb. Rabb finds that the Dickey-Wicker amendment does not apply to federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells because the cells do not meet the statutory definition of an embryo. The cells, however, would have to be derived with private funding.

The policy does not affect research in the private sector or research conducted with state funding. The president claimed that more than 60 stem cell lines would be available for funding. The policy was intended as a compromise.

The President''s Council on Bioethics, chaired by Leon Kass, publishes Monitoring Stem Cell Research, a report that contains "no proposed guidelines and regulations, nor indeed any specific recommendations for public policy." But according to Kass, the overarching goal of the report is "to convey the moral and social importance of the issue at hand and to demonstrate how people of different backgrounds, ethical beliefs, and policy preferences can reason together about it."

The Act makes conducting stem cell research a state constitutional right. It authorizes the sale of general obligation bonds to allocate three billion dollars over a period of ten years to stem cell research and research facilities. Although the funds could be used to finance all kinds of stem cell research, it gives priority to human embryonic stem cell research. Proposition 71 created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), which is in charge of making "grants and loans for stem cell research, for research facilities, and for other vital research opportunities to realize therapies" as well as establishing "the appropriate regulatory standards of oversight bodies for research and facilities development". The Act also establishes a governing body called the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee (ICOC) to oversee CIRM.

The report proposed four primary approaches to address ethical concerns: non-harmful biopsy, harvesting from dead embryos, Altered Nuclear Transfer (ANT), and cellular reprogramming.

These guidelines introduced the requirement for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight (ESCRO) committees and established strict protocols for donor consent, ensuring that stem cell research was conducted safely and ethically amid a lack of comprehensive federal regulations at the time.

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 810) aimed to expand federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research by allowing the use of stem cells derived from embryos donated from in vitro fertilization clinics. However, it was vetoed by President George W. Bush on July 19, 2006, who argued it crossed a moral boundary by supporting the destruction of human embryos.

The guidelines outline core principles and best practices for the field.

The order expands the NIH Embryonic Stem Cell registry to include all types of ethically produced human pluripotent stem cells. The order renames the registry to the Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry.

The pluripotent cells were created from skin cells that had four genes inserted into them with viruses. This procedure resulted in the skin cells acquiring properties similar to embryonic stem cells. Researchers were able to coax these so-called iPS cells into becoming beating heart cells and nerve cells.

Geron Corp, the company behind the research, was authorized to initiate a clinical trial in a handful of patients paralyzed due to spinal cord injury. The company later decided to discontinue its stem cell trial for spinal cord injury patients in an effort to focus on its oncology program. The stem cell assets were later acquired by BioTime, which indicated plans to restart the trial. Participants from the original trial continue to be monitored for 15 years.

This Executive Order by President Obama revokes the Executive Order signed by President Bush on June 20, 2007 and the Bush Presidential statement of August 9, 2001 that limited federal funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells.

The cause of death is unknown. McCulloch was born in Toronto and worked as a lead researcher at the Ontario Cancer Institute and the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto.

The registry was created pursuant to President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13505, Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells.