Backtracking on stem-cell advance: Embryos were destroyed

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted: August 31, 2006

Summary:

PHILADELPHIA - The California biotech company that grabbed headlines last week for sparing human embryos while creating precious stem cells in fact destroyed all 16 embryos used in the experiments.

Advanced Cell Technology vice president Robert Lanza, senior author of the research, was widely quoted as saying he hoped the new embryo-sparing approach to making stem cells would overcome ethical objections and expand federal funding for the research.

Supplemental data submitted with the paper revealed that Lanza's team did not fully use the approach -- it just extrapolated from less ambitious experiments.