Scientists Turn Human Skin Cells into Stem Cells in Breakthrough
By Sabin Russell,
San Francisco Chronicle
| 11. 21. 2007
[Quotes CGS's Jesse Reynolds]
Separate teams of scientists on two continents revealed Tuesday that they have created stem cells from human skin cells - a development that eventually could allow researchers to sidestep the contentious moral issues that have hobbled early studies in a promising field.
The startling breakthrough was hailed by parties on all sides of the stem cell debate because it raised the prospect that the controversial destruction of human embryos and the need to harvest eggs from women donors might one day no longer be needed.
"This has the potential to reshape the politics and science of stem cell research," said Jesse Reynolds, a policy analyst for the Center for Genetics and Society, an Oakland-based organization that favors stem cell studies.
The Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute, a Catholic ethics think tank in Thornwood, N.Y., said the new technique described in the two papers is a major advance that passes ethical muster. "This is almost a magical moment," he said. "We wanted to see science go forward, but in a way that will respect human life."
Published...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 03.08.2024
Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago.
The work raises the prospect of older women being...
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Guardian | 02.28.2024
Doctors say a man in California who contracted blood cancer while living with HIV is in remission from both potentially fatal illnesses thanks to a treatment they are hailing as remarkable and encouraging.
Paul Edmonds is only the fifth-known person...
By Victoria Gray, Uduak Thomas, and Kevin Davies, The CRISPR Journal | 02.14.2024
In July 2019, medical staff in Nashville dosed the first U.S. patient in the exa-cel therapy trial, sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. That first patient was Victoria Gray, a mother of four from Forest, Mississippi, a sickle cell...