Originally Posted By jonvn It's reported in Science magazine that scientists have now been able to reproduce stem cells from human skin, thus getting around the problem that some people seem to have with how we were getting them before. This means, of course, that we no longer need to harvest them from embryos, and we can go back to incinerating them like we had been doing anyway. Hurray for the right to life. They've already been able to make nerve and heart cells from them. So it's a pretty big breakthrough. But since this is in Science mag, it probably is all just left wing propaganda anyway. Here's the article: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/21/MNVOTG8FM.DTL&type=science" target="_blank">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/21/MNVOTG8FM.DTL&type=science</a>
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA This is a big breakthrough. I suppose we should all thank President Bush for forcing scientists to go 'back to the drawing board' on stem cells and where to get them.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Well, it's not quite a home run yet, nor should it close off embryonic research (though certainly some will call for that now). From the article: "Richard Murphy, interim president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was created by the 2004 initiative to distribute that money, said the new findings were exciting, but do not take away the need for more research using human embryos. "It was human embryonic stem cell work that gave rise to these new findings," he said. State grants will be provided to pay for both kinds of stem cell research. "You fund the very best science," he said. A major disadvantage of the new technique is that the stem cells produced are likely to cause cancer. In subsequent experiments by Yamanaka, the method did produce cancer in mice."
