A company called NeoStem will be announcing a joint project with the Vatican on Tuesday to promote research in adult stem cell therapy.
It’s not often that the Vatican gets directly involved with a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and while the Catholic Church is not making a financial commitment in the deal, it is a kind of “Vatican Seal of Approval.”
The charitable arm of the biopharmeceutical company, the Stem for Life Foundation, will be working together with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture to try to show the promise of adult stem cell research in treating disease.
The Catholic Church has long opposed research on embryonic stem cells, arguing that such work means destroying life.
“There are terrible ethical and moral problems with the use of embryonic stem cells,” said Fr. John Zuhlsdorf of the Catholic Online Forum. “To use them you have to kill an embryo. This is not a problem with adult stem cells.”