f human cloning ever makes money for Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, there will be a hidden beneficiary: the University of Massachusetts, which stands to collect 4.5 percent of the company's net sales under a 1998 licensing deal.
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The small biotech firm has been at the center of a heated national debate since it announced Sunday that it had begun cloning human embryos to harvest their stem cells for use in fighting disease. On Monday, President Bush condemned the work as ''growing life to destroy it,'' and called for a congressional ban.
But UMass officials say they will stand by their deal.
''It's an area fraught with legal, ethical, and moral considerations,'' said Robert Connolly, a spokesman for UMass president William M. Bulger. ''President Bulger said he believes that ACT should be mindful of all legal requirements, but he noted that there are limits on what UMass can do to control scientific advances that emanate from its campuses. I haven't heard anyone suggest that the university will be somehow held culpable for this.''
For now, ACT's human cloning work is preliminary, and company officials say that any potential medical uses are at least a decade away.
But the cloning debate is already among the most contentious in the scientific world, with some researchers arguing that cloned-embryo research is an inevitable step toward growing customized organs, and others saying that cloning humans for any reason is morally wrong.
The roots of ACT's work, however, lie not in human cloning but in animal research conducted by former UMass professor James Robl and four colleagues.
Set on commercializing his work, Robl formed ACT in 1994 and secured a license from UMass to use the technology he had developed while on the state payroll. At the time, ACT focused on creating genetically altered animals that could produce medicine in their milk. And UMass was taking its first steps in transferring promising research conducted by its scientists to the private sector.
UMass initially almost gave away its rights for a $200,000 licensing fee and $300,000 in research funding. But a few years later, the university renegotiated its deal to secure a significant chunk of royalties. Thirty percent of any UMass royalty would go to Robl and his fellow inventors, none of whom are still at UMass. The remainder is earmarked for new UMass research and the expense of securing patents.
So far, Connolly said, UMass has not received a dime more than the initial fee.
Connolly said there had been no discussions at UMass about relinquishing any interest in ACT, but said if it were signing a new deal today, ''we would build in a greater say in how the technology would be used.''
Bulger is well-known for opposing abortion and taking strong views on the sanctity of life, but Connolly said Bulger was ''not greatly galvanized by these latest developments. At this point, we stand on the sidelines and hope they use it in a legally responsible fashion.''
James Borghesani, Acting Governor Jane Swift's press secretary, said Swift has not articulated a stance on human cloning. House Speaker Thomas Finneran, who opposes abortion, also has not reached a position, according to his spokesman, Charles Rasmussen.
UMass physicist Fred Byron, vice chancellor for research at the Amherst campus where Robl did his work, said he had no qualms about accepting money from ACT or any other firm that developed UMass's scientific ideas.
''There are probably people who are uneasy about this,'' he said. ''But I'm delighted if any company we license technology to develops a successful product. As a public university, it's right that we should attempt to discover things that have promise for society and get them out there. If we get a few bucks too, that's nice.''
Rick Klein of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
