Police Wednesday arrested a man in connection with last week’s pipe bomb explosion at a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research.
The man had already been charged last year with trying to blow up the same building.
The pipe bomb exploded last Thursday morning at the Amaranth Bio laboratory in Watertown, Mass., shattering windows, police said. No one was hurt in the blast.
Watertown police said they arrested Brad Karger, 29, on Wednesday morning. He will be arraigned on charges of having placed an explosive device and burning a building.
Police said Karger was awaiting trial on charges he tried to cause a gas explosion in the same building in February, 2003.
Efforts to reach Karger and his lawyer were not immediately successful.
Amaranth’s Web site says its technology is focused on organ regeneration and it is working on possible cures for diabetes and liver disorders.
Subject of national debate
The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms also joined the investigation.
Stem-cell research has become the subject of nationwide debate ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
President Bush has forbidden the use of federal funds to manipulate human embryos and has limited scientific research to a few existing batches of cells.
Scientists say this limits a promising field of biological research and medicine based on the potential of the cells, which theoretically can be directed to form any tissue in the body.
Democratic candidate John Kerry has said he would rescind Bush’s ban.
