GEORGIA HAS AN impressive academic and clinical research history in biomédical science. In 1998 physicians at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (in partnership with Emory University) performed the first allogenic umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant on a child for sickle cell disease, resulting in a cure. To attract technology industry professionals, the Georgia Research Alliance creates a collaborative network of researchers. Georgia promotes nonembryonic stem cell and related research, and researchers are performing work on National Institutes of Health—approved human embryonic stem cells to discover treatments for human disease.

No federal legislation in the United States regulates stem cell research except the executive order to not allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in cell lines created after August 9, 2001; each state is responsible ...