Source: The Times
Date: July 16, 2007
Summary:
The Times reports that a Japanese scientist has successfully reprogrammed adult mouse skin cells into an embryonic state, a finding that could end the ethical controversy over embryonic stem cell research:
"Japan's leading genetics researcher could be "a matter of months" from reaching the Holy Grail of biotechnology producing an 'ethical' human stem cell without using a human embryo, he has said. The potential of Professor Yamanaka’s breakthrough work – in which the skin cells of laboratory mice were genetically manipulated back to their embryonic state – has been hailed as the equivalent of “transforming lead into gold”. If the research develops in the way he hopes, runs the excited logic, the ethical problems that have swirled around embryonic stem-cell research would disappear."
