The UK's Best Stem Cell Researcher Leaves For France For Lack of ADULT stem cell Funding

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Have you heard this before? "We have to fund embryonic stem cell research, otherwise our country will suffer a 'brain drain' and our best scientists will leave the United States so they can do their research thus leaving the USA behind in science and stem cell research"??

Well, this may be a sign of things to come for the United States although the brain drain will be the ADULT stem cell researchers, not embryonic stem cell researchers leaving...just like what is happening in the UK.

Newcastle specialist quits UK for France, citing undue focus on embryo research, writes Zoe Corbyn

A renowned British stem-cell expert is to leave the UK to pursue his research in France, claiming that there is insufficient support for his work here.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University and an expert in adult stem cells, this week hit out at both his university and UK funding agencies. He said that they were prioritising embryonic stem-cell research above work with adult stem cells, despite the more immediate clinical benefits offered by his work.

Professor McGuckin plans to leave for the University of Lyon in January, taking a research team of about ten from Newcastle, including his research partner Nico Forraz. He will open the world's biggest institute devoted to cord blood and adult stem-cell research at Lyon.

Speaking exclusively to Times Higher Education, he said he was leaving because he had to put his patients and staff first. "The bottom line is my vocation is to work with patients and help patients and unfortunately I can't do that in the UK." He said France offered a "much better environment" both to "cure and treat more people" and to "do good work".

He said that France had kept a "much more reasoned balance" between supporting adult and embryonic stem-cell research, unlike the UK, which had focused on embryonic research to the detriment of adult stem-cell research.

"(France) is very supportive of adult stem cells because they know that these are the things that are in the clinic right now and will be more likely in the clinic," he said. "A vast amount of money in the UK from the Government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient having being treated, to the detriment of (research into) adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded."

He also criticised the attention embryonic stem cells received over the past year from academics, the media, Parliament and his university. "You would barely know that adult stem cells exist at Newcastle," he said.

There is so much that is wrong here.  A man wants to help his fellow countrymen as best he can and because of this embryonic stem cell fraud that is being forced on us, he has to leave. Good on you Colin, good on you.

"We desperately need more funding for adult stem-cell research because with these cells we really can make a difference to patients' lives, and we can do it now, not in ten years' time as is promised for embryonic stem cells," said Anthony Hollander, a professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering at the University of Bristol.

Well, the first part is right Anthony about needing more funding for adult stem cell research, but 10 years from now for embryonic stem cell cures would be a miracle.

Read the whole sad article here