Chad Cowan is not your typical junior faculty member. He joined the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital last year, working in one of the hottest and most contentious areas of scientific inquiry today—human embryonic stem cell research.

During his first year as an assistant professor, he’s not only had to deal with the usual challenges of starting a lab. He’s also had to learn to talk to philanthropists, cut through unusual amounts of red tape to access research materials, and advocate for his work on Capitol Hill. He’s realizing that a career in such a controversial and politicized area of research will mean more than just churning out papers and grant proposals.

As a graduate student at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Cowan worked with mouse stem cells. But the promise of using human embryonic stem cells as tools to understand and even treat human disease was very attractive. By working on these cells, he says, “I feel like I could, at some point in my life, look back and say, ‘I made a difference for the general health of mankind.’”

For his postdoc, Cowan wound up in the lab of the prominent Harvard stem cell biologist, Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). There, Cowan helped produce 17 new human embryonic stem cell lines, which are now distributed freely to labs around the world.

The reality of doing this kind of research began to sink in toward the end of his postdoctoral work. President George Bush’s 2001 rules limiting federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research would force him to seek private money.

Find the funding

It turns out that funding has been one of the easier hurdles for Cowan to overcome. As he neared the end of his postdoctoral work, Cowan was approached by the Stowers Institute—a nonprofit biomedical research institute in Kansas City, MO, founded in 1994 by the owners of the multibillion-dollar mutual fund company, American Century Investments. The Stowers had become interested in supporting stem cell research and tried to persuade Cowan and another young Boston-based stem cell biologist, Kevin Eggan, to come work for them in Missouri. Though interested, the men were discouraged by efforts in Missouri to criminalize certain aspects of stem cell research and declined.

Frustrated by Missouri politics, the Stowers opted to create the Stowers Medical Institute in Cambridge. Separate from the institute in Kansas City, the Cambridge outfit’s sole purpose is to fund Cowan and Eggan, who is now on faculty at Harvard, over the next few years. Cowan has secured more than half a million dollars for each year until 2010.

Still, his funding can be affected by the changing winds of politics. In 2006, Missourians voted to amend the state constitution in favor of sanctioning human embryonic stem cell research, ensuring that scientists at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City will not be criminalized for their work. As a result, the Stowers Institute decided that by 2010, it would give grants only to Missouri-based researchers. This means that Cowan and Eggan will have to either move to Missouri or find other funds to support their research.

Even with their funding secure in the short term, Cowan and Eggan participate in fundraising activities, which often involve speaking directly to wealthy philanthropists. In many cases, potential donors have misconceptions and naive ideas about what stem cell research entails. “It makes you think of new ways of explaining what you do,” Cowan says.

Public speaking

With so much public attention focused on stem cell research, scientists have also had to hone their skills explaining, sometimes even defending, their work to the public. Cowan doesn’t particularly enjoy media attention but recognizes he has an obligation to talk to the press.

“It’s important for young scientists to understand this is part of their job,” says David Scadden of Massachusetts General Hospital, who leads the HSCI with Melton.

That role includes talking to politicians as well. In January, Cowan and Eggan went to Capitol Hill to speak with members of Congress who were considering a piece of legislation that would roll back some of the current restrictions on federal funding. Cowan says he doesn’t find the trips to D.C. particularly burdensome. “It was very interesting to learn about all the political maneuvering,” he says. Once the novelty wears off, he admits, it might become a different story.

Approvals needed

Another issue facing young biologists in the field is the extraordinary effort required to gain institutional approval for certain types of work on human embryonic stem cells. Each of the nearly 20 hospitals, institutes, and Harvard schools affiliated with the HSCI has its own set of protocols and requirements to ensure the work is done ethically. Going through the various approval processes can mean delays in getting projects started.

Cowan has been waiting for 10 months for the green light to bring his stem cells lines from Harvard to MGH. In the meantime, he has been shuttling back and forth between MGH and Melton’s lab in Cambridge where he can continue to work on the lines. Scadden has been waiting for more than a year to obtain approval for some of the work he wants to do.

“I never would have thought it would have taken this long,” Scadden says, though he adds that the processes are necessary to ensure the research meets standards of ethics and transparency.

Despite such hurdles, Cowan remains enthusiastic about his work and the future of the field. “My goal in the first five years here is to show people exactly how useful human embryonic stem cells can be therapeutically.”