The National Institutes of Health, the government’s medical research financing unit, began accepting grant applications Jan. 5 from scientists studying an advance reported in November. Japanese and U.S. researchers had transformed ordinary skin into stem cells that, in theory, could be grown in the laboratory into tissue to repair organs damaged by disease or trauma.

The new approach may compete with research under way at Geron Inc. and Advanced Cell Technology Inc. to regenerate nerves and cure blindness, even though scientists say it may be years before they know whether the advance will yield useful treatments. Advocates of extracting stem cells from embryos say exaggerated claims for the new method could derail research programs backed by California and New York, the biggest biomedical projects undertaken by states.

“Misrepresentations of this research are leading people into believing that embryonic stem cell research is not necessary anymore,” said Robert Klein, chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which is responsible for giving out US$3 billion in state grants over the next decade. “That is a tragic distortion of these very new, very tentative discoveries. Patients’ lives are at stake.”

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