Singapore fast tracks Australian stem cell plant

SINGAPORE -- Singapore's ESI Cell International Pte Ltd, the owner of six lines of human stem cells, says it will accelerate its plans to establish a pilot production laboratory in Melbourne, Australia.

The company said when U.S. President George W.Bush announced earlier this month that limited stem cell research would be permitted, the way opened for scientists using ESI's cells to get U.S. government funds to investigate diseases that might be cured by stem-cell-based therapies.

Human stem cells are the undifferentiated precursors of all the cells in the human body.

Stem cells could potentially be used to create new, healthy tissue cures for such diseases as cancer and Parkinson's disease.

President Bush said federal funding would be granted only for research using the existing stem cell lines already derived from donated human embryos.

"Since that announcement we have received a very large number of enquiries and will push ahead with our plans to make the cell lines widely available," Robert Klupacs, the company's chief executive, said in a statement.

ESI said in the long term it envisaged specialized production facilities in Melbourne, Israel and Holland, with a major production hub in Singapore.

Australian government grant for plant

The company said it had contracts with research organizations in each of the four countries to undertake defined research on its behalf, with ESI owning the research results.

The Melbourne pilot plant would be funded by an Australian government grant to the National Centre for Advanced Cell Engineering at Monash University, the company said.

Klupacs said plans were well advanced to develop production facilities, giving ESI scientists the ability to sustain an infinite supply of ESI stem cells, as well as their second- and third-generation enhanced versions.

Scientists will potentially be able to identify the biological stimuli which influence stem cell differentiation.

Reuters contributed to this report.