NIH nominee supports embryo stem cell research

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's nominee to head the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday he supports federal funding for research on stem cells from human embryos and promised to speak up if scientific advances pass the limits Bush has set.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, a top administrator at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, sailed through his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee. Its chairman, Sen. Edward Kennedy, said the full Senate could vote to confirm him by week's end.

In his first public remarks since Bush nominated him, Zerhouni outlined a vision for biomedical research, saying scientists must find ways to more quickly translate research results into clinical testing and must work more closely across disciplines.

He addressed funding for embryonic stem cell research, which Bush struggled with last summer. Zerhouni left little doubt he supports research some see as a key to medical breakthroughs and others consider the moral equivalent of baby killing because it relies on destruction of days-old embryos to extract cells.

"As executive vice dean at Johns Hopkins, I was instrumental in creating an institute for stem cell engineering primarily because I was concerned about the lack of any federal funding to advance the fundamental research still needed in this promising but fledgling field," he told the committee.

He said that he was disturbed by young researchers who said they didn't want to go into stem cell research for fear that no federal funding would be available. "Without federal funding, it is hard for me to see how you develop a field of science in our country," he said.