UNMC researcher responds to NIH request for proposals that would use President Bush-approved human embryonic stem cell lines

Stephen Rennard, M.D.

A UNMC faculty member, Stephen Rennard, M.D., Larson Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, in response to a request from the National Institutes of Health, has applied for a grant to study emphysema that, if funded, would use two of the human embryonic stem cell lines approved by President Bush.

Dr. Rennard has spent his career studying lung diseases, such as asthma and emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

COPD affects 20 million Americans and is the fourth leading cause of death, killing 120,000 people each year. While smoking is a major cause of COPD, non-smokers are also afflicted. His recent application builds on a current grant in which he uses a mouse model to study how lung tissue repairs itself.

He has found that the cells responsible for healing appear to be abnormal in lungs with emphysema and COPD. He theorizes that if one could infuse stem cells, those cells could grow new tissue. Dr. Rennard and his team, UNMC faculty members J. Graham Sharp, Ph.D., and Xiangde “Martin” Liu, M.D., previously have shown that mouse stem cells injected into mice go to the lung, differentiate or change, and form cells called fibroblasts which make up the connective tissue in the lungs and other parts of the body. Currently, it is unknown if mouse and human cells behave similarly in this process.

Before this research may be conducted it must be approved by UNMC’s Institutional Review Board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and an internal scientific review panel as required in the recommendations for Human Stem Cell Research developed by the University of Nebraska Bioethics Advisory Committee.

According to Thomas Rosenquist, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research at UNMC, this would be the first time UNMC researchers have proposed using federally approved human embryonic stem cells. “The National Institutes of Health has issued a call to currently funded researchers to submit projects that could utilize the Bush-approved embryonic stem cells lines,” he said. “While we hope that this project is funded, at this time we have not heard that it is.”

In its goal to be a world-class academic health sciences center, UNMC is interested in pursuing all appropriate research avenues, with the ultimate hope of finding treatments and cures for the devastating diseases that affect so many, Dr. Rosenquist said. “We are excited and proud to enter into this avenue of research,” he said. “We have been a leader in the study of adult stem cells and other research methods, and we believe that embryonic stem cell research holds tremendous promise, as well.

“As we enter this area of research, we will follow the guidelines set forth by President Bush, the National Institutes of Health, the UNMC Institutional Review Board and the University of Nebraska Bioethics Advisory Committee.”