Source: Financial Times
Posted: June 7, 2007 03:00 GMT
Summary:
The Financial Times reports scientists have reprogrammed adult skin cells to function like embryonic stem cells. A second study also mentions that fertilized eggs, as opposed to unfertilized eggs, can be used to breed cloned mice, a finding that could lead to a new source of stem cells for human therapeutic cloning purposes:
"Three scientific teams published separate studies yesterday showing that embryonic stem cells can be made by reprogramming some of the genes in adult skin cells, without having to create an embryo - at least in mice. Separately, a fourth scientific paper showed that newly fertilised eggs could be used instead of unfertilised eggs to produce cloned mice. If this technique were extended to humans, it might open up a new source of stem cells for therapeutic cloning research: frozen -early-stage human embryos, which are much more plentiful than human eggs."
