• We continued our participation and membership in the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR), the leading coalition advocating for stem cell research and SCNT, also known as therapeutic cloning. Through active engagement on the CAMR Board of Directors as well as direct lobbying of U.S. Senators, the Foundation played a significant role in successfully halting consideration of an outright legislative ban on SCNT research at the federal level. We also worked in California to ensure that laws were passed banning reproductive cloning while allowing embryonic stem cell and SCNT research to continue lawfully, yet unhindered.
  
  
• One year after President George W. Bush's decision to provide federal funding for research on 60 pre-existing human embryonic stem cell lines, scientists still lack access to this promising new research area. This is due to ownership and distribution issues related to certain stem cell lines, the fact that some lines have not matured and therefore are not useful for research, and bureaucratic policy roadblocks. As a result, the Foundation joined in a CAMR letter to President Bush urging him to meet with stem cell researchers, cell line owners, and patient groups in order to jointly address the obstacles to implementing the policy.
  
  
• The Foundation made two strategic grants this past year related to the stem cell and SCNT research issue: an $8,000 contribution to the American Society for Cell Biology and a $30,000 contribution to CAMR. Both grants leveraged the Foundation’s voice in the stem cell debate, allowing the cause and our work to be visible in a wider audience of scientists, academicians, and patients.
  

We plan to continue our work safeguarding SCNT and embryonic stem cell research – working alongside the many stakeholders at all levels of government. Most importantly, we will continue as both an advocate and funder in support of lifesaving medical research.