CHAIRMAN OF BOARD AT HOLY CROSS ALSO IS CHANCELLOR AT SCHOOL USING EMBRYOS

The chairman of the Board of Trustees at a major Catholic college in Massachusetts is also chancellor for a medical school that dabbles with human embryonic stem cells.

The chancellor, Dr. Michael F. Collins, was named chairman in 2002 and will head the board at the College of Holy Cross until 2008. It is his full-time job as interim chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, however, that has drawn notice. That occurred last May.

As an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts acknowledges candidly, "We employ a variety of embryological, cellular, molecular and genetic approaches. These include lineage analysis, chimeras, and embryo culture as well as time-lapse imaging, tissue specific knockouts, wholemount in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence. We also utilize embryonic stem cells for gene targeting."

The use of human embryos for stem-cell research has been condemned by the Vatican as tantamount to abortion, resulting as it does in the death of a human, albeit in the earliest stages.