BBC News | SCI/TECH | Vatican support for 'placenta bank'

By Ruth Whitbread

The Roman Catholic Church is giving its support to a new research centre, which it believes could provide an alternative to the use of human embryos for medical research.

On 1 January, 2001, the Sacre Cuore (Sacred Heart) University in Rome is opening a placenta bank, providing researchers with human cells from what the Church considers an ethical source.

Scientists agree that stem cells - the "parent" cells of all tissues in the body - have enormous medical potential. In theory, they could be used to grow new cells to replace those parts of the body that are damaged because of injury or disease.

This could lead to new treatments for Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal cord injury and heart failure.

Cloning technology

Most scientists think the best stem cells - those with the greatest medical potential - are the ones that are derived from human embryos.

So let us use an ethically acceptable source of stem cells rather than going to the embryos straight away.

Dr Michael Jarmulowicz, Catholic Doctors Guild
These embryonic stem cells, they believe, will display the greatest flexibility, allowing researchers to produce the widest range of different tissue types.

But the Vatican opposes such research, believing experimentation on fertilised human eggs to be immoral.

It also opposes the application of cloning technology to stem cell studies, which many scientists say is essential to produce tissues that are a perfect match for the patient.

Ethical limits

The Church fears this will inevitably lead to the creation of whole-copy human beings.

Embryo research
Placenta-derived cells will provide an ethical alternative
The Vatican regards the collection and storage of placentas and umbilical cords, which also contain stem cells, as a compromise - even though there is no clear evidence yet that stem cells from these tissues will be as effective as those taken from human embryos.

But the new centre at least allows stem cell research to proceed within the ethical limits of the Catholic Church.

Dr Michael Jarmulowicz, of Britain's Catholic Doctors Guild, said: "What they hope to do is bank [the tissues], freeze them, and then use them for research.

"The experiments on the embryonic stem cells are identical (to) ones that can be done on later stem cells."


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