WASHINGTON – The promise of cures that could be found through stem cell research are drowning out the inconvenient truth: Yes, there very well may be cures in the future – but not right now.

Despite the fact that President Barack Obama came into office with the promise to “restore science to its rightful place” and allowed for federal funding to flow into the stem cell research arena, reversing the policy of the previous administration, no money has yet made its way to researchers. And that’s hampering efforts to make progress.

Anne Hiskes, the director of Research Ethics and Education for Stem Cell Research at the University of Connecticut, said that because stem cell research is still relatively new – it has been in existence for less than 50 years -- it will be a while before any breakthroughs occur.

“To play devil’s advocate, we haven’t seen any cures with the help of stem cell research at all yet, even though it seems like research facilities and the media continue to promise them and claim we’re so close to curing this and curing that,” said Hiskes, who is also the chair of the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Oversight Committee at the university.“[The progress] is very small – it’s not going to happen overnight.”

Because many theoretical questions need to be answered, such as whether injected cells will be able to stay alive in a new body, as well as how stem cells migrate and how they integrate with new cells, Hiskes said all the research to reach conclusions will take time. Usually, it takes about 65 years from the initiation of a new research method until scientists have some type of general expectance.

The scientific community is concerned that stem cell research may offer false hope for those with immediate needs.

Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, a professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy at Georgetown University, said, “the hype consists not so much in praising the advances…as in raising the hopes of the public by claiming that embryonic stem cells will be able to cure almost anything.”

When dealing with cures for ailments such as cancer, researchers also must determine whether or not the element that killed the original cells will also kill the stem cells. They also must figure out if the implanted stem cells will turn cancerous.

“What stem cells and cancer cells have in common is that both can grow uncontrollably,” Hiskes said. “There’s a long way to go to ensure patient safety.”

That doesn’t mean that the research should come to a halt.

Some prominent voices, meanwhile, have declared the importance of the research. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan publicly voiced how important she believes such research is to help find cures for illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, which her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, died of in 2004. Reagan is, of course, a Republican, a party that does not widely supported stem cell research.

Gomez-Lobo, who has taught at Georgetown for more than 30 years, said such research is essential.

“All cell research is important because the cell is the basic unit of life,” he said. “Stem cells, moreover, differentiate into all types of cells in the adult body. It would be wonderful to understand how this happens and it would be wonderful to steer the differentiation so as to cure degenerative diseases.”

Stem Cell Research 101

It’s also important to remember that there’s a difference between embryonic stem cell research and other kinds of stem cell research.

Adult stem cells, which are plentiful, are harvested from whatever part of the body is necessary. For example, if a doctor needs a bone marrow stem cell or a blood stem cells, it can be extracted from a patient’s bone. However, if stem cells are needed to study brain cell repair, there is a limited reserve of those types of cells.

“There have been quite a number of successful therapeutic applications of adult stem cells,” Gomez-Lobo said.

Stem cells may also come from umbilical cords and stored for later use, similar to blood stored in a blood bank.

While most people don’t have an ethical problem with adult stem cells or cord cells, some are concerned about whether or not to use embryonic stem cells, which come from fertilized human embryos.

While most other forms of stem cell research are not considered so controversial, using embryonic stem cells is. Because some scientists are dealing with human embryo cells, many adversaries say it is inhumane to use such material.

Hiskes disagrees, arguing that embryonic stem cell research is very important.

“One of the buzz words of human rights is to respect human dignity,” Hiskes said. “The concept of human dignity is very vague and can be understood in different ways.”

One of those ways according to Hiskes is to conduct research that will benefit people to lead better and in some cases normal lives.

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can be formed into any kind of cell in the human body. Scientists are currently working on ways to cure Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and to grow specific organs for people in need of organ transplants, as there is always a great shortage of donors.

“Bush used the concept of human dignity to argue against this research because he said a fertilized egg is equivalent to an adult human,” Hiskes said. “If you don’t think a fertilized egg has human rights, you can use the research to allow patients to live a life of human dignity.”

Not everyone agrees.

“We were all once embryos and we all deserve respect,” said Gomez-Lobo.

In retrospect, Hiskes said most embryonic stem cells used in research are from donors who have had a successful pregnancy or have given up on trying to get pregnant and have no more use for the stashed embryos. After a client at a fertility clinic decides that the embryos are no longer needed, the cells can be discarded, donated to another family trying to have a child, or stored indefinitely. Hiskes said it makes no sense when people say it’s ethically OK to throw embryos into a trashcan but immoral to use them instead to advance science.

Bioethicist Art Caplan also believes that stem cell research is very beneficial and should continue, however, people have to err on the side of caution.

“There has been hype and overpromising,” said Caplan, who is the director for the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. “I don’t know if stem cell research will work, I think it’s very interesting, I support doing it, but I think you have to be honest and say there’s a small chance nothing will work.”

In the meantime, Bioethicist Laurie Zoloth said she still has faith in the research.

“It has been slower to yield the sort of breakthrough therapies than hoped, but a cascade of basic science has been discovered – it just has not yet been fully understood,” said Zoloth, who is the director of the Center for Bioethics and Science and Society at Northwestern University.

Zoloth also noted the lack of progress can be attributed to the morality issue of the research. Fortunately, she said, countries like the U.S., Britain and Israel are contributing more money to the cause.

“I am optimistic that the theory will yet yield practical solutions to many human diseases, but the last decade reminds us how difficult it is to achieve results even with the most interesting and powerful theory,” Zoloth said.

Funding remains a major obstacle

According to Hiskes, optimal progress won’t be made unless Obama steps up to the plate.

“It was against the law [when George Bush was president] to hurt an embryo for the sake of research or create an embryo for the sake of research,” Hiskes said. “Obama didn’t change that.”

Although Obama delivered on his word to allow federal funding for stem cell research, no funding has been allocated yet.

Caplan said he believes funding is a big reason for the embryonic stem cell controversy.

“There was such a bitter battle over funding, so one side was screaming that you can’t kill embryos to try and save people and in response, the defenders of stem cell research began to say, ‘look, if you would let us do this research we can save lives,’” Caplan said. “It was in the heat of that political battle to score points that they overstated the case.”

Additionally, Hiskes said since Obama came into office, he’s actually been quite conservative on the issue of stem cell research. In fact, the National Institute of Health drafted new restrictive guidelines pertaining to linear stem cell research with some ex-post-facto regulations.

“It’s unfair to impose new guidelines that no one thought of with old cell lines,” Hiskes said.

The policy declares that there must be written consent for all embryonic stem cells donated for research – even old cell lines dating back to a decade ago when it was not a law.

Hiskes said that although that’s the way it is for now, the National Institute of Health agreed to review the guidelines, as many researchers are concerned that years of research will be lost forever.

“We don’t want to have to start again with completely new cell lines,” she said.

Hiskes also said scientists cannot create new embryonic lines with federal money. Funding cannot even be used to work with stem cells derived through parthenogenesis – when an egg is not fertilized yet, but is stimulated to start dividing.

While many continuously hope for the day that there’s a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and the war on cancer is finally won, one thing most researchers agree on is that we definitely won’t see that day unless the research continues.

Currently, scientists are working on ways of reprogramming somatic cells, or any cell that makes up the body of an organism, back to their embryonic stage and the same thing is happening in Japan – with skin cells.

“Research itself is not unethical,” Gomez-Lobo said. “It is a noble search for knowledge.”