and Republicans controlled both houses of the state legislature. Arizona Republicanism is not moderate. In 2014, Arizona Republicans publicly and formally censured John McCain, their Republican senior U.S. senator, for his liberal voting record, including his support of stem cell research. The voters censuring McCain are the same voters who have turned out in impressive numbers to see that the legislative initiatives of the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) succeed. CAP is set up as a charity and thus can neither raise money for political candidates nor make endorsements, but so powerful is CAP President Cathi Herrod that she has been described as an unelected legislator, one who has unprecedented access to elected officials. CAP’s primary mission is to see that Arizona’s public policy protects the “sanctity” of human life “from its very beginning to its natural end.”
Although anti-abortion laws—more than 20 of them—have been the focus of CAP’s efforts, Herrod and her supporters have also targeted stem cell legislation. They use every opportunity to lobby, depending particularly on a well-organized church network. In advance of elections, they distribute a voting guide that identifies candidates’ stand on CAP issues, and they send “action alerts” to members during the legislative session, urging them to immediately call a legislator to be sure their senator or representative votes the right way. The result is voters who turn out to vote in large numbers, even in primary elections in which voter turnout is generally lower. Such tactics helped to pass the 2010 act that specifically makes illegal “any research that involves the disaggregation of any human embryo for the purpose of creating human pluripotent stem cells or human pluripotent stem cell lines.” CAP was also influential in seeing a 2006 bill passed that requires doctors to provide pregnant women with a pamphlet made available by the Department of Health Services that describes options related to umbilical cord blood donations and provides specific information on preservation and donation of cord blood.
Research Institutions
Researchers in Arizona avoid issues of legality and thorny ethical dilemmas by focusing on research that uses stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood or adult stem cells taken from fat tissue.
The University of Arizona, established in 1885, is a public research university ranked among the top public universities and colleges in physical sciences research and in research and development expenditures by the National Science Foundation. David Harris, a professor in the university’s Department of Immunobiology, is considered a pioneer in stem cell banking. In 1991, Harris became among the first to bank stem cells when he preserved his first child’s cord blood stem cells. In 1992, Harris founded the Arizona Cord Blood Bank, which later became the Cord Blood Registry, the largest cord blood stem cell bank in the world.
Lalitha Madhavan, MD, PhD, and assistant professor of neurology, concentrates on stem cells and their applications to neurological diseases with a goal of devising brain repair strategies for neurological disorders based on the manipulation of stem cells. Zain Khalpey, director of mechanical circulatory support, health transplant, and translational research at the university’s Sarver Heart Center and practicing cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Arizona Medical Center, is engaged in research that uses stem cells in ex vivo reconditioning of marginal human hearts and lungs, which will generate functional lung and heart tissue that ultimately can be used for transplantation.
Arizona State University (ASU), a multicampus public research university, is ranked among the best in the nation in terms of research output, innovation, development, expenditures, number of awarded patents, and awarded research grant proposals. Karmella Haynes, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, is a synthetic biologist whose research includes development of a synthetic protein that is able to control gene expression and slow the growth of cancer cells. Haynes, an affiliate researcher for the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was awarded an $81,000 NSF grant in 2013 to support her research to develop more advanced synthetic monitors to track the development and health conditions of body cells.
Nonacademic research institutions in Arizona include the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a nonprofit organization applying advances arising from the Human Genome Project to the development of diagnostics, prognostics, and therapies for cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes, and other diseases, and the Banner Sun Health Research Institute, a nonprofit research facility dedicated to the study of age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease. Ratan Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor in TGen’s cancer and cell biology division and in the neurogenomics division and a clinical pediatric neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute branch of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, uses his background in stem cell human development, neural regeneration, and neural plasticity to study childhood perinatal stroke and how stem cells might be used to help restore lost function.
In 2013, Salvatore Oddo, a leader in the development of genetically engineered mouse models and their use in the study of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, joined the research team at the Banner Sun Health Research Institute as a senior scientist and an associate professor in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences at the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix. The Banner research team is engaged in studies developing cardiac stem cells as a means of treating congestive heart failure and working on biomarkers for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. One of just 30 national Alzheimer’s disease core centers in the United States, the institute maintains collaborations with other nationally recognized centers such as those at Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, and the University of Washington.
The Mayo Clinic in Arizona opened its own stem cell laboratory in the summer of 2014. The laboratory is dedicated to storing and processing stem cells used for bone marrow transplants, but it also provides the potential for research-related activities, including regenerative medicine.
Wylene Rholetter
Auburn University
See Also: Adult Stem Cells: Overview; Alzheimer’s Disease; Cord Blood Banking; Parkinson’s Disease.
Further Readings
Fischer, Howard. “Cathi Herrod at Helm of Conservative Center for Arizona Policy, Guiding Lawmakers” (March 2, 2014). AZDailySun.com. http://azdailysun.com/news/local/state-and-regional/cathi-herrod-at-helm-of-conservative-center-for-arizona-policy/article_fabe26a2-a1ba-11e3-9a43-0019bb2963f4.html (Accessed May 2014).
Fischer, Howard. “Session Gave Green Light to Conservatives.” Arizona Daily Star (May 2, 2010). http://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/session-gave-green-light-to-conservatives/article_50669189-63c3-556d-a542-96a07c646aa0.html (Accessed May 2014).
Harris, David.“Collecting, Processing, Banking, and Using Cord Blood Stem Cells for Regenerative Medicine.” In Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine: From Molecular Embryology to Tissue Engineering, Krishnarao Appasani and Raghu K. Appasani, Eds. New York: Humana Press, 2011.
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