Reliance Life Sciences of the Reliance Group, Mumbai and National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore amongst the 10 elite organisations worldwide that will supply embryonic stem cells for use by federally funded American researchers. Reliance Life Sciences and the National Centre for Biological Sciences are said to figure in the list of 10 companies and research laboratories that have colonies of human embryonic stem cells that the US President, George W Bush, said are eligible for research with US government funds. The National Center for Biological Sciences has three lines, while the Reliance Life Sciences of Bombay has seven lines.
Embryonic stem cells, usually retrieved from the core of 5 to 7 day old human embryos, can grow into virtually every kind of tissue in the human body when nurtured properly. They can be used as a regenerative source for tissues damaged in diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other medical disorders.
The other laboratories or companies in the list are BresaGen, Athens, (4 lines ); CyThera, San Diego (9); Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (5); Monash Institute of Reproductive Biology , Melbourne (6); Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (4); University of California , San Francisco (2); Goteborg University, Goteborg 19); and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Madison (5).