A federal advisory committee recommended yesterday that the government approve funding for research using human embryos in the primitive development stages.
The committee, composed of 19 experts from across the nation, includes Associate Professor of Psychiatry Ronald Green, director of the College's Ethics Institute.
The panel's decision is the first step towards reversing the government's position opposing research on human embryos. In 1980, Congress enacted a law requiring the Ethics Advisory Board to approve all research performed on human embryos.
Following the enactment of the law, Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush allowed the Ethics Advisory Board responsible for approving embryonic research to expire, making embryo research impossible, Green said.
Last year, Congress modified the original law, stating that research using human embryos could proceed until the Ethics Advisory Board said it could not. Accordingly, the Institute created an advisory committee to fill in the gaps in embryo research law, Green said.
Embryo research could provide doctors and scientists "great potential benefits," like new information on fertility, cancer and genetic disorders, the committee said.
Committee members stipulated that such research must be limited because a human embryo "possesses qualities requiring moral respect." Research on embryos will therefore be permitted only under "stringent guidelines," Green said.
For example, Green said research will only be allowed on embryos until the 14th day of development, when the primitive streak - the first characteristically human changes in the embryo - develops.
Biology Professor Ed Berger said the "immediate impact on the Dartmouth community is not yet apparent" because College professors are not currently involved in research in the area of human embryo research.
Funding for this type of research offers "a lot of potential in terms of replacement therapy. Fetal tissue has the potential to replace damaged tissue," offering hope to patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease, Berger said.
Nerve and neurological damage is difficult or impossible to repair because adult neurological tissue does not regenerate, and synthetic drug therapies have also been ineffective, Berger said.
Another possible development of embryo research could allow women who would otherwise be unable to have their own child to become impregnated, Green said. Researchers will be better able to determine why individuals are infertile and to study the process of freezing women's unfertilized eggs, which is now impossible, he said.
The Committee's decision cited in its conclusion that a human embryo "does not have the same moral status as infants and children."
Opponents of human embryo research spoke against the recommendation and demanded that any government policy funding embryo research establishes a definition of when human life begins.
Professor Green said he received more than 100 letters from opponents of research on embryos, including some death threats.
"Many of the letters were thoughtful, but many or even most didn't even understand the issues very well," Green said.
Even though final approval of embryo research is still under question and months away, NIH has received over 200 applications funding requests, Green said.
Green said the faculty and resources of Dartmouth greatly assisted the committee and himself since January when the committee was appointed to make a recommendation.
Internet and the computer network allowed committee members to stay in constant contact as well as work in a more flexible environment, Green said.