STEM CELL research at the ITI life sciences headquarters in Dundee has been given added intellectual muscle with the inclusion of Heriot Watt University to the £9.5 million programme, but the spectre of a US lead in the race to unlock the secrets of the technology continues to overshadow the project.

ITI Life Sciences was set up to exploit early stage technology research, and Dundee University, Glasgow University and Swedish biotech firm Callartis AB are exploring methods of applying screening expertise developed in Dundee to stem cell research.

It is hoped that the collaboration will develop automated processes to produce high volumes of human stem cells, which are immature and have the ability to develop into a wide variety of body tissue.

It is believed this could lead to the development of specific cells to treat many diseases, including type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.

Heriot-Watt joins the programme as it advances through a second phase of development, and ITI will use the Edinburgh university’s expertise in medicinal chemistry to optimise the most promising compounds to improve their performance and ability to induce, consistently and controllably, desired changes in human cells.

These compounds will then be incorporated into the automated process designed to produce cells in sufficient quantity for high-throughput screening and enable commercial and clinical exploitation.

However, it appears that the Scottish programme is involved in a race against both time and colleagues in the States, who announced earlier this year that they expected to begin their own clinical trials in the first quarter of next year.

At the moment privately funded, embryonic stem cell research in the US is expected to attract world-wide funding in the following year, when the flood gates are anticipated to open wide.

In the UK, however, where £100 million has been earmarked for stem cell research, there are still question marks over the timescale of the funding, which could be critical to the progress of the research.

Scotland’s public health minister Shona Robison, the Dundee East MSP, has already written to colleagues at Westminister, asking for assurances that Dundee’s biotech industry will not be stymied by the late arrival of funding.