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Embryology

Volume 710: debated on Thursday 14 May 2009

Questions

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), whether the recent partnership with the Californian Institute of Regenerative Medicine entails that collaboration with scientists based in California is favoured by the Medical Research Council over collaboration with those based in Massachusetts, Oregon and Wisconsin. [HL3350]

The MRC's partnership with the Californian Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) currently constitutes a targeted initiative to encourage collaborative proposals between researchers in California and the UK which aim to progress preclinical stem cell research towards clinical testing. The partnership addresses a particular strategic opportunity, but does not limit the MRC's capacity to support high quality research proposals submitted directly to the MRC which might include collaborations with researchers based in other states in the USA or in another country. The MRC continues to discuss scientific opportunities with a number of overseas partners, and remains central to international collaboration in stem cell research through its chairmanship of the International Stem Cell Forum.

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To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), what proportion of funding has been contributed by the Medical Research Council towards collaborative research with scientists based in California, and how this compares to financial contributions by the Californian Institute of Regenerative Medicine to support the same partnership. [HL3351]

The MRC has identified funds of up to £5 million over four years to support the UK component of collaborative proposals submitted to the CIRM disease team request for applications. The MRC is fully involved in the peer review procedure to ensure the competitiveness of proposals. For successful collaborative proposals, CIRM will fund all project work done within the State of California and the MRC will fund the UK component of project, subject to the available funds.

The overall CIRM budget available for the call is $200 million, and in addition to MRC, CIRM is partnering three other agencies under this call for applications under similar arrangements—the State of Victoria, Australia; the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium of Canada; and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN). Through this collaborative funding partner programme, California-based principal investigators (Pis) can collaborate with researchers eligible for funding by any of these agencies.

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To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), whether they can provide examples of original research publications describing human embryonic stem cells derived by nuclear transfer in which a primary or significant focus on such stem cells would not have been revealed without trained scrutiny of the entire content of a paper. [HL3352]

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), which significant examples of research publications describing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be cited for which neither the terms “induced pluripotent stem cell” nor “iPS cell” were explicitly used in the title, abstract or associated keywords, such that trained scrutiny of the entire content of a paper would be required to determine if research with such cells was described therein. [HL3353]

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To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 5 May (HL2987), whether the citation rate of research papers normalised by subject area has provided a reliable measure of their quality in the case of papers claiming to have derived human embryonic stem cells following nuclear transfer, beginning with those described in the journal Science (Volume 303, pages 1669–1674). [HL3355]

The MRC has not undertaken an analysis of citation rates for research papers claiming to have derived human embryonic stem cells from nuclear transfer, and this could not be undertaken without incurring disproportionate cost.