UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #732
THOMSON, JAMES A.

THOMSON, James A. (1958- )
John D. McArthur Professor of Anatomy, UW-Madison Medical School and Regional Primate Research Center; Scientific Director, WiCell Research Institute
At UW: 1991-
Interviewed: 2005	
Interviewer: Robert Lange
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Early education; Study of biophysics; Graduate study and research at the University of Pennsylvania; Primate Research Center; Stem cell research; WARF; Ethical issues; Research goals; Politics of stem cell research; Future applications of stem cell research; WiCell Research Institute.

Interview Session (November 3, 2005): Tape 1

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:33	James A. Thomson was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1958.  

00:01:15	Interest in science from an early age.  He talks about an uncle who worked at NASA.

00:02:54	JT recalls some influential teachers from grade school and high school.  He excelled in mathematics.

00:05:11	He attended the University of Illinois where he studied biology with Professor Fred Meins.

00:07:27	JT discusses Meins’ impact on his research interests.  He majored in biophysics.

00:09:58	He pursued graduate study in veterinary medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with cancer cells in a research laboratory.  He studied under Professor Solter.  Comments on the high-profile character of his research projects throughout his career.

00:12:11	JT studied for a joint V.M.D./Ph.D. degree at Penn.  He wanted to combine reproductive technologies with developmental biology and did so in his postdoctoral research at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.

00:15:34	He became certified as a pathologist to work at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center.  This position gave him the time to do his stem cell research without worrying about achieving tenure.

00:18:12	The university was unwilling to invest in stem cells unless JT became a faculty member.  Twice he declined offers to become an assistant professor before finally accepting the offer in 1999.

00:19:26	UW double-promoted JT to full professor in 2001 when stem cell research issues came to public prominence.

00:20:43	Comments on the university’s support for his stem cell research.  WARF set up WiCell in 1999 to handle investment and funding issues.  WARF was critical to his research.

00:22:03	1995 publication about embryonic stem cells.  He disclosed to WARF that human embryonic stem cells might be patentable.  

00:23:08	Industrial relations grant to make primate embryonic stem cells patents more commercially applicable.  He was turned down for a grant to pursue human stem cell patents; he thinks people were scared away from human stem cells because the federal government was unwilling to invest.

00:23:55	Geron Corporation offered to fund JT’s research.

00:24:29	JT relates how he came to be interested in deriving human stem cells.  His advisor at Penn was one of the first embryologists who was working on the malignant equivalent of embryonic stem cells.  Before beginning his postdoctoral research, JT went to learn how to derive mouse embryonic stem cells.  Access to embryos.  When he came to UW he was working as a postdoc to derive primate embryonic stem cells, first from rhesus monkeys in 1995, then from marmosets in 1996.

00:26:42	He suspected that somebody would quickly derive human embryonic stem cells after the publication of his research.  He was aware of the media attention such an achievement would occasion.

00:28:18	JT talked with bioethicist Alta Charo about the ethical implications of human stem cell research.  He thinks it is worth using embryos that would have been discarded; he has no qualms about his research and admits that he is tired of the ethical debate, which has not changed since a 1994 report.

00:31:31	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:31:42	James A. Thomson continues to discuss the ethical issues of research with human embryos.  He thinks the ethical debate would have dissipated had not George W. Bush been elected president.  Nevertheless he thinks Bush’s permission of stem cell research to proceed has been beneficial to science and has legitimated stem cell research.

00:35:51	Political intervention in scientific issues stopped many developments in the field during the 1990s.

00:38:21	Current research focuses on working on practical issues with the new model of human embryonic stem cells.  JT has collaborated with M.D.s on campus to investigate the applications of this research; but his goal focuses on the stem cell itself–why can it form anything in the whole body while other types of cells cannot?  Self-renewal versus differentiation.

00:42:25	JT is still the leader in stem cell work but the field is growing rapidly. 

00:43:59	During the late 1990s he frequently testified in congressional hearings and gave presentations on the significance of stem cell research.  After 2001, however, he feels that the cause of stem cell research has won the contest for public opinion.

00:44:57	There has been a good deal of Republican support for stem cell research.  He thinks the Wisconsin state legislature is out of step in making this research a partisan issue.

00:46:54	His lab does not receive any funding from the state.

00:48:14	He describes his closest collaborators at Wisconsin.  Comments on the intellectual atmosphere at UW.

00:51:36	He is happy to be living in the Midwest.

00:52:43	JT thinks there are parallels between the early days of recombinant DNA and the early days of stem cells: publicity and public controversy, enthusiasm about the potential of these technologies, difficulty of predicting future applications.  He predicts that some stem-cell based therapies will be successful but it will be difficult to apply to most diseases.

00:55:31	He thinks stem cell techniques will be most important as tools for researchers working on other, non-controversial projects.

00:58:07	Anxieties about state of science education in American schools.

00:59:20	JT talks about the WiCell Research Institute.

01:01:42	“Cost recovery” for stem cell lines is subsidized by the federal government; WiCell distributes the lines.

01:02:42	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.

END