In the summer of 2001, Daisy Manning interrupted her summer beach vacation to watch President Bush declare on TV that the federal government would fund embryonic stem cell research only on existing lines. Manning, 21 at the time, was studying zoology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and working part-time as an assistant for an obscure scientist, James Thomson, who had established five stem cell lines. Because his lines were among the 22 viable ones that already existed, they effectively received a federal stamp of approval. She was in the right lab at the right time.
Four years later, Manning is one of the few people in the world who can coax, cajole, and keep Bush-sanctioned embryonic stem cells alive. At the International Society for Stem Cell Research's annual meeting, her first scientific conference, she is a star attraction among more than 2,100 scientists from around the world.
Manning surveys the crowded exhibit hall. In her red shirt she stands out against a carnival of booths staffed by marketeers hawking such wares as imaging equipment, nutrient solutions, and antibodies. She spots Meri Firpo, a researcher at the University of Minnesota's Stem Cell Institute, surrounded by a retinue. "She originated two stem cell lines," whispers Manning, awed.
For a preconference event, Manning is invited by the National Institutes of Health to present an overview of a course about culturing stem cells, which she offers at the WiCell Research Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that Thomson helped establish. Scientists seeking NIH grant money must obtain their stem cells from an organization like WiCell. Prior to the Bush decree, the firm had distributed cells to about 30 research groups. Today, WiCell estimates that 250 labs worldwide are using its stem cell lines.
Manning and others who control federally approved stem cells are grateful for a policy that provides funding and has increased demand, but at the same time they are not happy that it has curtailed work on the hundreds of other stem cell lines out there, each holding its own miraculous promises. She would like the Bush restrictions to end, and quickly. This fall she plans to apply to law school as a first step to helping craft a new policy - one that would allow only surplus embryos from fertility clinics to be used to produce stem cell lines. "People should not be asked to donate embryos," she says.
Outside the main exhibit hall, a former student of Manning's from Australia approaches to tell her that he has developed a stem cell line. A group forms, and there's talk of "freezing cells," "recovery," and "differentiation." The researchers speak reverently of "Jamie" (meaning Thomson) and "Meri." At the center of the discussion is Manning, an expert in a science that in many ways did not exist when she was a zoology student four short years ago.
- Eric Pfeiffer
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Accidental Expert
