The unusual agreement with NeoStem allows the church, which opposes embryonic stem cell use, to taking a constructive role in one of the most promising areas of medical research.

As chairman and chief executive of her own company, Dr. Robin Smith is a significant player in the world of biopharmaceutical products and research. Self-confident, poised and well traveled, she is used to dealing with movers and shakers.

But when she negotiated an agreement with her company’s latest business partner, she didn’t deal directly with the top executive.

He is, after all, the pope.

In an agreement that tends to elicit the response “Really?,” the Vatican recently signed a $1-million compact with Smith’s New York company, NeoStem, to collaborate on adult stem cell education and research.

The partners will hold a conference in Rome in November that is expected to attract some of the world’s leading experts on adult stem cells, the less controversial cousins of embryonic stem cells. The Roman Catholic Church staunchly opposes the use of embryonic cells in research or medical therapy, a position that has put it at odds with many scientists and many practicing Catholics.

The agreement enables the church to be seen as taking a constructive role in one of the most promising areas of medical research. For NeoStem, the advantages are obvious.

“It’s like when you have the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” Smith said. “This is the Vatican seal of approval.”

Smith, who was in Southern California recently for a stem cell conference in Pasadena, was quick to emphasize that the Vatican is not investing in her company, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Most of the collaboration will involve a nonprofit company established by NeoStem, the Stem for Life Foundation, she said. The Vatican’s role will include fundraising, launching educational campaigns, contributing to research and sponsoring the Rome conference, Smith said.

The partnership is rare, perhaps unprecedented. “It is unusual, ” said Father Tomasz Trafny, the Vatican’s point man on the deal. “Never in history [have] we entered into such [a] collaboration.”

Trafny, a Polish-born priest who heads a science and theology unit within the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the church decided to collaborate with NeoStem for two reasons.

“First, they have a strong interest in … searching for the cultural impact of their own work, which is very unusual,” he said. “Many companies will look at the profit and only at the profit.

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