Source: Boston Globe
Date: August 22, 2005
Summary:
The Boston Globe reports on a new advance by researchers at Harvard University where human skin cells, when fused with embryonic stem cells, can take on the properties of embryonic stem cells, potentially diffusing the ethical controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research:
"Harvard scientists have created cells similar to human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a major step toward someday possibly defusing the central objection to stem cell research. The team showed that when a human skin cell was fused with an embryonic stem cell, the resulting hybrid looked and acted like the stem cell. The implications: It may eventually be possible to fashion tailor-made, genetically matched stem cells for patients using such a cell fusion technique, rather than by creating and then destroying a cloned embryo. That use of early embryos is the main sticking point for opponents of stem cell research."
