This is the first in a series discussing the two presidential candidates’ stances on issues directly or indirectly affecting college students and university campuses.

Federal funding for stem-cell research has been one of the most highly publicized yet possibly one of the least understood issues in this year’s election cycle. Emotional appeals from the Democratic camp calling for expanded federally funded stem-cell research tout medical miracles for Alzheimer’s and diabetes, while Republicans declare their sympathy toward ethical principles in medicine and humanity, explaining the stance to not further allocate money to additional studies.

Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry’s platform vows to expand federal funding for stem-cell research involving new stem-cell lines. Though Kerry’s supporters often criticize President Bush’s stance on limiting funding to stem-cell lines developed before the fall of 2001, Republican supporters note the commander in chief’s commitment to the scientific investigations.

“Democrats have tried to depict President Bush as some anti-science Luddite,” Deputy Policy Director for the Bush/Cheney campaign, Meagan Hauck, said. “President Bush was actually the first president to fund stem-cell research.”

For the University of Wisconsin and the Madison region specifically, the outcome of the election — whether federal funding for embryonic lines gets expanded or not — will directly impact the nimbleness of the isthmus’ research-oriented economy.

Potential for growth is largely anchored in the stem-cell lines owned by the university, as spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Andy Cohn noted. Cohn realized the fact that no new stem-cell lines can even be researched in a state-owned lab, though, under Bush’s policy, stem-cell lines derived after the fall of 2001 can still be studied through private funds.

However, the global community has not acted with such caution toward the issue of stem cells as President Bush has. In 2002, the Financial Times was littered with articles about countries such as Singapore and Australia putting billions of dollars into attracting biotechnology development interests to their countries. Worldwide revenues from biotech in 2003 stood at $7.8 billion, according the office of Democratic California State Sen. Debra Ortiz, which has led California’s initiative to expand its biotech industry.

The battle for drawing biotech firms is not just a worldly one, as states compete to retain their stem-cell researching interests having growth potential as if they were professional basketball players. The city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio gave $100 million dollars in combined funding and tax breaks to Athersys, the firm holding the patent to adult stem cells developed from bone marrow, while California waits on a referendum to make it easier for firms to receive state money and loans.

California leads the nation in the number of biotech firms that, in total, account for approximately 225,000 employees and $12.8 billion in wages and salaries. Still behind other states like New Jersey, which has also developed a small private-public partnership to fund embryonic stem-cell research, Madison leads the Midwest biotech economy.

Laura Strong graduated from UW with a PhD in organic chemistry and joined the Madison-based Quintessence Biosciences as their first employee in 2000.

“Now we have 11 employees and I’ve moved over to the business side,” Strong said.

There is a popular confusion, according to Strong, that biotech is completely rooted in drug discovery using stem cells.

“Quintessence makes polymers — tools that allow scientists to explore the biological activity of cells,” Strong said.

Though the public and politicians might want results now, cures for diseases such as juvenile diabetes are, in reality, years away.

WARF’s Cohn said he believes if developments do come to fruition and proceed to the market, Bush will lift the ban on allowing new stem-cell lines to receive federal funding.

“He said, ‘wait and see,’ not never,” Cohn noted.

Asked about how much the stem-cell issue, in the end, really means to voters, Cohn replied: “It’s not as important as the economy, terrorism, health care, education, but it’s not an issue that you can kiss off.”