Yesterday the University announced it will contribute a line of human embryonic stem cells to the U.S. National Institutes of Health registry as part of a continuing effort to develop treatments for life-threatening diseases.

For the past two weeks, the University has been finalizing plans to make the line available nationally. This will be the University’s first national addition to the registry since Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing research on surplus embryos unfit for reproduction in 2008. Other universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Stanford University and the University of Connecticut, have also contributed to the registry.

The NIH registry created guidelines in July 2009 that make independently generated embryonic lines for federally funded research available. There are currently 147 stem cell lines on the registry.

Gary Smith, co-director of the A. A. Taubman Consortium for Stem Cell Therapies, started work on the line in October 2010. Smith said development of the line sets the University apart from other major research institutes.

“I do believe it makes us unique in comparison to many other universities,” Smith said. “It does put us in a handful of universities across the Unites States (that have contributed to the registry).”

The line was created from a five-day-old embryo approximately the size of a period, which would have been discarded because it was not fit for implantation. The cells will be used to understand stem cell biology, how certain diseases form and to design treatments and cures for those diseases, Smith said.

The line is genetically normal, but University researchers are working to develop two disease-specific lines, Smith said. Researchers are also working on eight others — five of which will be genetically normal.

Sue O’Shea, the other co-director of the Consortium, said in a press release the combination of the two types of stem cell lines will open up a wide range of possibilities in disease research.

“We envision in the future that investigators will be able to use the genetically normal embryonic stem cell lines … together with disease-specific embryonic stem cell lines, as a model system to investigate what causes these diseases and come up with treatments,” O’Shea said.

Eva Feldman, director of the A.A. Taubman Medical Research Institute, said in the press release the breakthrough of the developing lines offers additional opportunities to find cures to diseases.

“This is another major step forward for medical science in Michigan,” Feldman said. “This opens up another avenue for researchers to really begin exploring the causes and progression of those diseases, with the ultimate goal of finding new therapies for patients.”

A. Alfred Taubman, founder and chair of the Taubman Institute, added in the press release that the recent stem cell progress is monumental for the University’s research programs.

“I consider stem cells to be a modern miracle — the most exciting advance in medicine since antibiotics,” Taubman said. “The progress we have made throughout the state in stem cell research has been nothing short of remarkable.”

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‘U’ stem cell line added to NIH