SAN FRANCISCO -- Stanford University announced Tuesday its intention to clone human embryos, becoming the first U.S. university to publicly embrace the politically charged procedure.

The intent is to produce stem cells for medical research.

"For any group to stay out of the action and wait for someone else to do it because of political reasons is wrong," said Dr. Irving Weissman, director of the school's new Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine.

Embryonic stem cells develop into all the cells that make up the human body, raising hopes they can be used to treat many illnesses.

Embryos must be destroyed to harvest the stem cells, and some anti-abortion activists and others oppose the research.

The announcement touched off a debate over whether the school was embarking on cloning.

Weissman, who will direct the school's effort, and the university, emphatically denied that the project involves cloning embryos. He said Stanford's work would involve taking DNA from diseased adult human cells and transferring them into eggs, then growing them in the lab.

The cells would then be harvested, destroying the blastocysts before they're implanted, Weissman said. He said Stanford will use the stem cells only to study disease, and will not implant any cells to be grown into organs or other body parts.

Many other researchers say this is a distinction without a difference -- that this kind of nuclear transfer, which would create an exact genetic replica of the adult cell donor if allowed to grow, is in fact cloning.

The American Association of Medical Colleges, of which Stanford is a member, defines it this way:

"Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) or therapeutic cloning involves removing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg cell, replacing it with the material from the nucleus of a 'somatic cell' (a skin, heart, or nerve cell, for example), and stimulating this cell to begin dividing."

The technique was used by Scottish researchers used in 1997 to create Dolly the sheep.

Weissman said his planned research is "not even close" to cloning.

A university official Tuesday evening denied that the institute would engage in human embryo cloning.

"We're not cloning embryos, and we're not going to clone embryos," Stanford spokeswoman Ruthann Richter said.

Similar research has been done at the University of California at San Francisco, which ultimately closed down its program as its lead researcher was preparing to leave for England, where stem cell research is more accepted. The school didn't publicly disclose its two-year therapeutic cloning project and acknowledged it only after a story in the Wall Street Journal.

A Massachusetts company called Advanced Cell Technology created a furor when it claimed to have created clones using the technology, but in fact its embryos only were able to divide into a few cells.

Ronald Green, chairman of Advanced Cell's ethics advisory committee and a religion professor at Princeton University, applauded Stanford's announcement, but said "cloning" is in fact the most widely accepted term for what Weissman's team plans to do.

"We've been struggling with names for this technology -- I've favored 'therapeutic cloning,' " Green said. "Almost any terminology is inadequate to explain the complex science."

Michael Manganiello, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supports stem-cell research, is encouraged by the Stanford move. "They're going to do it. It's just a matter of perfecting the technique."

Weissman is an outspoken stem cell research proponent. When he served as chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel, he testified before the U.S. Senate earlier this year in favor of nuclear transfer as a way of creating new lines of stem cells.

The human stem-cell lines Stanford develops will be used to study diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease. The research will take place at Stanford's new Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. It will be privately funded and will avoid any conflict with President Bush's policy against using federal money to create new stem-cell lines.

The creation of human embryonic stem-cell lines cannot be done using federal money under a ban issued by Bush in August 2001.

Only research on stem-cell lines created prior to that date is eligible for federal funds. Bush has repeatedly stated his opposition to human cloning.

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Stanford University announced today it will establish a new Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, a multi-disciplinary initiative that is believed to be the first of its kind in the country. The institute will bring together basic and clinical scientists in a unified effort that will harness the power of stem cell biology and cancer biology to develop novel treatments for cancer as well as other devastating diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and cardiovascular disease.

An anonymous donor has committed $12 million in seed money for the institute, which will be directed by renowned stem cell researcher Irving Weissman, M.D., the Karel H. and Avice N. Beekhuis Professor in Cancer Biology.

"This is a major undertaking that will capitalize on Stanford's expertise in stem cell and cancer research. It exemplifies our goal of translating the fruits of laboratory research into therapies that will directly benefit patients," said Philip A. Pizzo, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and a distinguished cancer researcher. Weissman said research in his lab and elsewhere suggests that in some cancers, such as leukemia, the cancer cells grow and proliferate in much the same way as stem cells. Scientists at the new institute will explore these similarities with the goal of developing powerful new stem cell-based therapies to treat cancer, he said.

"What we're doing is examining these two fields that we thought were separate and looking at the overlap that exists between them," Weissman said.

He said institute scientists also will work to develop a new series of embryonic stem cell lines that will serve as models for a wide range of genetically related diseases including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, allergies and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease.

"We want to translate the advances in embryonic stem cell research to create lines that represent genetically determined diseases and make these lines available to investigators who want to understand and treat these diseases," he said.

The institute will build on the long-standing history in stem cell and cancer research at Stanford University School of Medicine. Weissman was the first to isolate blood-forming stem cells in mice in 1988. In 1992, he isolated human blood-forming stem cells. He collaborated with Robert Negrin, M.D., professor of medicine, and others in a clinical trial in which purified stem cells were used effectively to treat women with advanced, metastatic breast cancer. More recently, Seung Kim, Ph.D., assistant professor of developmental biology, and colleagues reported using embryonic stem cells to produce insulin to keep diabetic mice alive, while Judith Shizuru, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, has had good results in using stem cells to treat autoimmune disease.

"The Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine will serve as a prototype for Stanford's commitment to form interdisciplinary research programs that bring together scientists and clinicians dedicated to improving the health of children and adults," said Pizzo, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor at the School of Medicine.

The institute will support existing efforts at the School of Medicine while seeking to attract additional scientists who are internationally recognized in the fields of stem cell and cancer biology, Weissman said. The institute also will spearhead efforts to have Stanford designated as a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute, he added.

The institute's work will be integrated into the educational program of the School of Medicine, allowing students to opt for a five-year medical degree program in cancer and/or stem cell research and training. These trainees ultimately could be the seed for novel cancer and stem cell research and clinical programs around the country, Weissman said.

The institute will have two deputy directors -- Karl Blume, M.D., professor of medicine and former director of the bone marrow transplantation program, who will serve as the clinical investigation director; and a director of scientific affairs who has yet to be named. The institute will be overseen by an executive committee of leading Stanford clinicians and scientists. Stanford also will recruit a medical director for the Clinical Cancer Center now under construction, a facility designed to promote collaboration between clinicians and researchers.

While the initial $12 million commitment will serve as seed money for the institute, Stanford will seek funds from public and private sources to sustain and enhance the endeavor.

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