monitors to track the development and health conditions of body cells.
Nonacademic research institutions in Arizona include the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a nonprofit organization applying advances arising from the Human Genome Project to the development of diagnostics, prognostics, and therapies for cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes, and other diseases, and the Banner Sun Health Research Institute, a nonprofit research facility dedicated to the study of age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease. Ratan Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor in TGen’s cancer and cell biology division and in the neurogenomics division and a clinical pediatric neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute branch of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, uses his background in stem cell human development, neural regeneration, and neural plasticity to study childhood perinatal stroke and how stem cells might be used to help restore lost function.
In 2013, Salvatore Oddo, a leader in the development of genetically engineered mouse models and their use in the study of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, joined the research team at the Banner Sun Health Research Institute as a senior scientist and an associate professor in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences at the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix. The Banner research team is engaged in studies developing cardiac stem cells as a means of treating congestive heart failure and working on biomarkers for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. One of just 30 national Alzheimer’s disease core centers in the United States, the institute maintains collaborations with other nationally recognized centers such as those at Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, and the University of Washington.
The Mayo Clinic in Arizona opened its own stem cell laboratory in the summer of 2014. The laboratory is dedicated to storing and processing stem cells used for bone marrow transplants, but it also provides the potential for research-related activities, including regenerative medicine.
Wylene Rholetter
Auburn University
See Also: Adult Stem Cells: Overview; Alzheimer’s Disease; Cord Blood Banking; Parkinson’s Disease.
Further Readings
Fischer, Howard. “Cathi Herrod at Helm of Conservative Center for Arizona Policy, Guiding Lawmakers” (March 2, 2014). AZDailySun.com. http://azdailysun.com/news/local/state-and-regional/cathi-herrod-at-helm-of-conservative-center-for-arizona-policy/article_fabe26a2-a1ba-11e3-9a43-0019bb2963f4.html (Accessed May 2014).
Fischer, Howard. “Session Gave Green Light to Conservatives.” Arizona Daily Star (May 2, 2010). http://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/session-gave-green-light-to-conservatives/article_50669189-63c3-556d-a542-96a07c646aa0.html (Accessed May 2014).
Harris, David.“Collecting, Processing, Banking, and Using Cord Blood Stem Cells for Regenerative Medicine.” In Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine: From Molecular Embryology to Tissue Engineering, Krishnarao Appasani and Raghu K. Appasani, Eds. New York: Humana Press, 2011.
Arkansas
Arkansas
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Arkansas
Arkansas has a historic link to stem cell legislation in the United States. In 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress, in a rider attached to the appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services, banned the use of federal funds for any research in which a human embryo is either created or destroyed. Each year since 1996, Congress has renewed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, named for its authors, Representatives Jay Dickey of Arkansas and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Seven years after the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, Arkansas passed a law prohibiting the production of a living organism at any stage of development that is genetically virtually identical to an existing or previously existing human organism. The 2003 law also made human cloning a felony punishable by prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines up to $10,000. Even as state legislators were in the process of limiting stem cell research, the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) was engaged in efforts to increase biomedical research initiatives in the state.
The universities, the business community, and state legislators worked together to see ABI achieve its goal. In 2007, the legislature passed Act 695, the Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Initiative Act, a public policy to promote research involving stem cells from a less controversial source, and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority authorized the Arkansas Research Alliance to encourage university-based research and innovation in strategic focus areas, one of which was stem cell research.
The Laws
On March 24, 2003, Governor Mike Huckabee signed into law a bill to ban the cloning of humans for any purpose, including medical research. Although Democrats controlled both houses, the bill passed by a vote of 88–5 in the House and a vote of 34–0 in the Senate. The House rejected an amendment to permit human cloning for research. In 2007, the Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Initiative Act passed both houses of the state legislature with equally strong bipartisan support and was signed by Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat. Representative Jon Woods, one of the bill’s sponsors, said that he saw the cord blood bank as an issue that could unite Arkansans with different views of stem cell research and help boost Arkansas’s stem cell treatments and research.
Opponents of embryonic stem cell research called the cord blood legislation a pro-life solution to the stem cell debate. Critics of the state ban praised the new legislature for providing that some of the cord blood can be used for research. The legislation established a statewide cord blood banking network that aids in collecting and transporting donations. The network is housed at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), which has one of the largest adult blood cell transplant centers in the country. The Cord Blood Bank of Arkansas opened in 2011.
Arkansas Biosciences Institute
The Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000 created the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) in 2001 with five member institutions: Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute; Arkansas State University (ASU); the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture; the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville; and the UAMS. The overarching goal of the partnership was to improve the health of Arkansans through agricultural and biomedical research initiatives. By 2011, when ABI celebrated its 10th anniversary, the $109 million in tobacco settlement funding received by ABI had generated more than $350 million in leveraged extramural funding from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock is the member institution most directly concerned with stem cell research. The state’s largest public employer, with more than 10,000 employees, UAMS has an annual economic impact of almost $4 billion. It includes the colleges of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, health professions, public health, and graduate school and is also home to the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, of which the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy is a part.
The Arkansas Cancer Research Center opened in 1989, with the space evenly divided between research and patient care. The name was changed to the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute in 2007 to honor the late Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Winthrop P. Rockefeller. The center operates one of the top peripheral blood stem cell transplantation clinics in the world. The transplant clinic offers autologous, allogeneic, and matched unrelated donor transplants, as well as outpatient transplant, stem cell selection, novel therapeutic, and gene therapy programs. Stem cell transplantation, a less