Public Embryo Bank Started at Secret San Diego Location

A secret location in San Diego houses what is believed to be nation's first public embryo bank, which seeks to tap into the more than 400,000 human embryos frozen at in vitro fertilization clinics around the country, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported this morning.

Reporter Terri Somers wrote the story, which said that scientists are gathering the leftover embryos with plans to "send them to stem cell researchers around the globe."

The embryo bank is called the Stem Cell Resource. Somers said it was "created by a local in vitro fertilization doctor, two scientists from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and a fourth person whom the others declined to identify." The location is being kept secret for security reasons.

"The impetus behind the bank's creation was a combination of a shortage of embryonic stem cells for research purposes and the desires of women to do something with embryos that they said would never have a chance of life," Somers reported.

"'Until now, patients who decided that they wanted to donate their embryos to research had no place to send them,' said (one) of the bank's founders, Dr. David Smotrich, who founded his own practice, La Jolla IVF, six years ago."

"'We've already been contacted by scientists in Israel, and we've talked to people at Harvard and elsewhere around the country,' said Jeanne Loring, one of the founding scientists."

Somers continued:

"A few in vitro clinics have had agreements to supply embryos to researchers. Advanced Cell Technologies, a biotechnology company started in Massachusetts to conduct stem cell research, has had agreements with a few different doctors, Chief Executive William Caldwell said.

"But Caldwell, (Pamela)Madsen (founder of the American Fertility Association) and others contacted for this story believe the Stem Cell Resource might be the first embryo bank of its kind, making collections from various doctors and screening who will receive them.

"Mindful of the federal funding crunch, the Stem Cell Resource plans to make the embryos available to vetted researchers at no cost, said Loring, an embryologist with the Burnham Institute and one of the bank's founders. Dr. Evan Snyder, a pediatrician and stem cell researcher at the Burnham Institute, is also a founder."

Somers wrote:

"Smotrich used his own money – about $100,000 so far – to fund the startup of the embryo bank. He has been reimbursed in part by private funds through the Burnham Institute. And he hopes that the facility will eventually be eligible for grants from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which was created by Proposition 71.

"Everyone who works at the Resource does so without pay, including Smotrich, several Burnham scientists and an embryologist who performs the in vitro fertilization work for Smotrich's practice."