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1992.10.15 :  Awards -- Fetal Tissue Banks

Contact:  Bill Grigg (202)690-6867
October 15, 1992

       The U.S. Public Health Service today announced the award
of five grants to establish fetal tissue banks to provide human
fetal tissue for research and experimental transplantation
therapy aimed at altering the course of Parkinson's disease,
diabetes and other disorders.
       The establishment of these banks is in response to a
presidential directive issued in May.  HHS Assistant Secretary
for Health James Mason, M.D., who heads the Public Health
Service, said, "The establishment of these banks will ensure that
needed human fetal tissue will be available for research and that
the collection of this tissue is consistent with the moratorium
that has been in effect since 1988 on using federal tax dollars
for human transplant research using fetal tissue from induced
abortions."
       The banks will derive tissue solely from spontaneous
abortions (miscarriages prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy) and
ectopic pregnancies (in which a non-viable fetus develops outside
the uterus).
       The five recipients are:  Indiana University School of
Medicine (Feng C. Shou, Ph.D.); University of Washington (Alan G.
Fantel, Ph.D.); University of Minnesota (Walter C. Low, Ph.D.);
National Disease Research Interchange, Philadelphia, Pa.,
(Leatrice Ducat); and University of Utah (D. Ware Branch, M.D.). 
The five centers will receive more than $6 million over the next
two years.  The grants are funded through the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National
Institutes of Health.  NIH  is one of the eight Public Health
Service agencies in HHS.


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       "The five centers will each develop a system for
obtaining, collecting, screening and storing viable, disease-
free, functional fetal tissue," Dr. Mason said.  "Such a system
will ensure investigators of receiving suitable tissue for
transplantation and other research."
       The centers will also work to improve techniques to assess
factors associated with optimal tissue condition (such as age)
for transplant and other research needs and to develop methods to
increase the quantity and improve the quality of usable tissue
from available sources.  Other work will focus on developing
fetal cell lines.
       Tissue collected by these banks will be catalogued and
available to qualified researchers around the country.

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