Foundation Seeks $11 Million to Fund Promising Research in Humans; Diabetes in Mice Cured Using Non-Embryonic Sources.

Editor's note. For more information on Dr. Denise Faustman's research and the effort of the Iacocca Foundation to raise money to support it, please go to http://www.joinleenow.org.

To most Americans, the enduring image of Lee Iacocca is of the charismatic head of the Chrysler Corporation during the 1980s. His role as philanthropist is much less well known.

Iacocca's wife, Mary, died of complications from Type I diabetes 21 years ago. Following her death, as Iacocca has said many times, "my family and I began a journey to support innovative diabetes research."

Iacocca's foundation is currently raising $11 million to support the work of Dr. Denise Faustman, whose research team in 2003 not only reversed, but actually cured Type I diabetes in mice. This is of particular interest to pro-lifers because her work is proving yet again that there is no need to lethally scavenge stem cells from human embryos to treat diseases.

To get a good feel for Dr. Faustman's work, ironically, you could hardly do better than this quote from (of all places) the November 9, 2004, edition of the New York Times. Writes Gina Kolata, "Dr. Faustman's story, scientists say, illustrates the difficulties that creative scientists can have when their work questions conventional wisdom and runs into entrenched interests. But if she is correct, scientists will also have to reconsider many claims for embryonic stem cells as a cure for diabetes, and perhaps for other diseases." (emphasis mine)

At first glance, you wouldn't think that finding additional financing that builds on a genuine medical first would be hard. But it has been excruciatingly difficult.

Kolata says that Dr. Faustman and some colleagues believe the reason is simple: "her findings, which raise the possibility that an inexpensive, readily available drug might effectively treat Type 1 or juvenile diabetes, challenge widespread assumptions." Among the assumptions, held by "many diabetes researchers" is the insistence that "a cure lies ... in research on stem cells and islet cell transplants."