Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Posted: June 6. 2007 13:29 PDT
Summary:
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a new technique to turn human skin cells into cells with traits of embryonic stem cells that could be an ethical way around the controversy over embryonic stem cell research:
"Scientists reported today that they have developed a promising new way to generate stem cells that carry DNA matching that of an adult, without having to resort to controversial cloning experiments involving viable human embryos. The work so far has been done only in mice. If replicated in humans -- and it's not clear how soon that might be -- it could be the first workable recipe for producing patient-specific stem cells for transplants or research." The new method, devised by separate teams of scientists in Japan and at stem cell affiliates of Harvard University and the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., demonstrates that ordinary cells can be reprogrammed to a state that appears indistinguishable from that of an embryonic stem cell.
