An eminent Scottish scientist has called for a rapid response fund to prevent the researchers behind stem cell breakthroughs being poached from Scotland.

An eminent Scottish scientist has called for a rapid response fund to prevent the researchers behind stem cell breakthroughs being poached from Scotland.

Sir Graeme Catto, who is president of the General Medical Council and former chief scientist for Scotland, said if a discovery was made quick action would be needed to reap the benefits close to home.

Universities and the former Scottish Executive already had to rally once after Professor Austin Smith, regarded as the father of stem cell research, quit his job directing the Institute of Stem Cell Research at Edinburgh University to set up a similar centre in Cambridge. It was feared there would be an exodus of other researchers in his wake.

However Sir Graeme said: "Very quickly the research community in Scotland worked with the Scottish Executive to make sure colleagues were able to stay and continue to research in Scotland and not be forced to go and look at jobs elsewhere.

"In future it seems to me as developments take place there may well be a need for a rapid response to make sure we can take these to the next stage or develop research techniques further in this country."

Speaking in his first interview since he became chairman of the Scottish Stem Cell Network, which brings scientists, clinicians and businesses together to develop new treatments, Sir Graeme said he believed patients with incurable health problems would start being treated with stem cells in around 10 years.

Stem cells, which can be obtained from embryos, have the potential to turn into many of the different cell types that make up the body and work is ongoing to use them to create a human repair kit. It is hoped, for example, they could be turned into nerve cells and used to help patients paralysed by spinal cord injuries, or liver cells and used to spare victims of liver disease a deadly wait for a transplant.

To date, Scottish scientists have registered five stem cell lines, which have the potential to turn into other cell types, with the UK stem cell bank. There are around 45 registrations in the bank and not all come from inside of the UK.

Sir Graeme predicted that during the next decade there will be sudden advances which make the prospects of treatments more tangible.

He said Scotland was at the leading edge, well-placed to play a part in such break-throughs, but needed to be ready to capitalise on them.

The quick access cash pool, which could start at around £250,000, need not be provided purely by the Scottish Government, he added, but also "benefactors".

Sir Graeme guarded against raising "false hope" among patients, stressing that while the field was filled with "optimism" none of the potential treatments were available today and would need rigorous testing before they were licensed for human use. He warned: "No doubt some of these things will become available without proper testing somewhere in the world and patients need to be very careful before they become involved in anything of that nature."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman welcomed Sir Graeme's comments. She said: "In providing public funding for research there is a difficult balance to be struck between the need to ensure best use of funds, which is necessarily time consuming, and the pace of research. We continuously try to identify any gaps and improve the processes involved.

"That is why Scottish Enterprise funds the Scottish Stem Cell Network and last year launched a £5m Stem Cells Translational Fund."