"Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.
Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday. It's a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.
The "direct reprogramming" technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos."
2 comments:
Jennifer-
Wow! This is wonderful. Does this really signal the end of the battle against human cloning? Seems to good to be true.
It seems to be very good and true news. Not just spin. Of course, states like CA, which passed Proposition 71,via a constitutional amendment (to do cloning/embryo research) will have to decide whether we want to try and repeal this amendment. We've given the scientists a blank check for research to the tune of $3 billion.
The Japanese at Kyoto have been busy plugging away at this research and it now seems to have paid off in more ways than on. Oh happy day!
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