Source: Nature
Date: 27 June 2005
Summary:
A new study published in the journal Nature describes an experiment attempting to give adult stem cells the properties of embryonic stem cells by fusing adult skin cells and embryonic stem cells:
"Scientists who want to study the special properties of stem cells may be able to use a new technique to avoid some of the practical and ethical pitfalls of stem-cell research. Scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have fused a human embryonic stem cell to an adult skin cell. They showed that the embryonic stem cell 'reprogrammed' the skin cell's nucleus, causing the skin cell to start behaving like a youthful, embryonic stem cell."
