Wisconsin State Journal
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Suppose a Wisconsin couple has successfully completed treatment at an infertility clinic and now has two children. Thankful for their blessing, they decide to donate surplus embryos from the process for scientific research. Otherwise the embryos would be discarded.
A researcher at a California university uses one of the donated embryos to derive a line of embryonic stem cells, cells that have the potential to develop into any of the 220 cells in the human body. Scientists believe stem cells can be the key to curing aliments such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, stroke and spinal cord injury.
She cultivates the cells in her laboratory for her own research. Another stem cell scientist across the country is doing similar work and believes this line of cells would be valuable to his study. The Californian is glad to oblige and send some cells to further science. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
In fact, the cells can’t be sent unless the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) says it’s OK. WARF is a nonprofit foundation affiliated with UW-Madison that manages inventions made by the university’s professors.
You cannot do anything with human embryonic stem cells in the United States unless the foundation gives approval. It controls three patents. One on all primate embryonic stem cells, which includes humans, was issued in 1998. A second, specifically on human cells, was granted in 2001. And a third on human cells was issued in April.
These patents cover not only the way UW-Madison researcher James Thomson isolated stem cells, but the very cells themselves. Patenting embryonic stem cells because you have a method to isolate them is like patenting chickens because you have a new method to provide chickenfeed. Or, like patenting food because you can cook.
Nonetheless, WARF claims and has, at least for now, been granted the rights to all human embryonic stem cells in the United States. The patents’ dubious validity is underscored by the fact that no other country in the world recognizes these claims.
WARF would have you believe it wants to “partner” with other researchers. But stem cell scientists, many of them reluctant to speak publicly because they fear they must work with the foundation in the future, say that its aggressive demands are impeding research.
Elizabeth Donley, WARF‘s general counsel, says that because California will require that 25 percent of eventual royalties received by nonprofit grantees be returned to the state, it is a commercial enterprise. Therefore, WARF would demand that the California stem cell institute fork over license fees and payments on all state-funded embryonic stem cell research.
California’s stem cell institute is scheduled to fund $3 billion of public grants in stem cell research over the next 10 years by selling public bonds approved by voters. The WARF licensing claim is little more than an outrageous attempt to raid the taxpayers of California.
WARF‘s executives need to get the dollar signs out of their eyes and stop impeding life-saving research.
