Scientists support Stem Cell Advocate fired by Bush Team

Mar 19, 2004
Scientists Rally Around Stem Cell Advocate Sacked by Bush Team
By Paul Elias
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Elizabeth Blackburn's dramatic laboratory discovery made her a scientific superstar and launched a burgeoning cancer research field. Yet it's not her lauded laboratory work that has led to her recent renown in the scientific community.

These days, Blackburn is better known as the outspoken advocate of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning whom the Bush administration fired from the President's Council on Bioethics last month.

The 55-year-old scientist has become a cause celebre for many researchers who complain that the White House's science policy is distorted by politics.

"I don't feel martyred," the University of California, San Francisco, scientist and native Australian said of her dismissal from the council. "I wear it as a badge of honor."

White House officials said Blackburn's two-year term on the council expired in January and that the biologist's contribution would no longer be relevant, since the panel was moving away from discussing human embryonic stem cells and into neurology and behavior.

They say politics had no role in her dismissal.

"Many other members who share her views on stem cells remain on the committee," said Dean Clancy, the council's executive director. "Their views are welcome, as were hers. The charge that she was let go because of her policy views is utterly without merit."

One member of the committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Blackburn failed to attend a number of council meetings after disagreeing with other members on policy.

Blackburn's defenders think she was dismissed, rather, because she disapproved of the Bush administration's highly restrictive position on stem cell research, a stance many top scientists complain is hindering disease research in a promising area.

"Liz is an important example of the absolutely destructive practices of the Bush administration," said University of Chicago medical professor Janet Rowley, also a member of the bioethics council.

Embryonic stem cells are created in the first days after conception and give rise to the human body. Many researchers hope to someday turn stem cells into medicines by manipulating their growth, but social conservatives oppose the work because it involves destroying embryos.

Blackburn's Feb. 27 dismissal came little more than a week after the left-leaning Union of Concerned Scientists accused the Bush administration of distorting scientific findings and manipulating experts' advice to avoid information that runs counter to its political beliefs.

In its wake, some 170 researchers have signed an open letter to President Bush protesting Blackburn's treatment. The American Society for Cell Biology, which represents 11,000 scientists worldwide, complained that it reflects a pattern of politics trumping science in the White House.

"This is not just a decent scientist, not just someone who has made some contribution that was abruptly dismissed," said Nobel laureate Tom Cech, a leading cancer researcher and president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "This a very smart and successful scientist working at the very highest level. She's one of the top biomedical researchers in the world."

Blackburn, who recently gained U.S. citizenship, said she accepted her appointment to the council in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, out of a sense of duty though she knew some of her views were at odds with those of its majority.

"Like everyone during that time, I wanted to do something, anything," said Blackburn, who is married to another "overachieving scientist," biochemist John Sedat. The mother of a teenage son, she plays the piano for relaxation.

In 1984, Blackburn was propelled to prominence in the cancer field after she co-discovered with Carol Greider the enzyme telomerase. Unlike normal cells, cancerous cells proliferate forever, and researchers now believe an overabundant supply of telomerase allows this malevolent immortality to occur.

Many believe that if the action of telomerase can be stopped, then cancer tumors could be shrunk and the disease controlled in some patients. Blackburn's current research is focused on how that might be accomplished.
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On the Net:

Blackburn's lab: http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/%7Eblackburn/index.html

President's bioethics committee: http://www.bioethics.gov