Summary
When researchers in Wisconsin and Japan announced last month that they had independently engineered skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, the achievement seemed to be the pinnacle of stem cell science. Until then, human embryonic stem cells could be produced only by destroying embryos.
Jim Huettner, a cell biologist at Washington University, is one of the few people with firsthand knowledge of what human embryonic stem cells can and can't do. Huettner runs the only laboratory in St. Louis currently conducting research with human embryonic stem cells.Existing embryonic stem cells probably won't be used in people because they are contaminated with animal sugars that would cause the human immune system to reject them if transplanted. President Bush's 2001 executive order bars federally funded researchers from working with newly developed stem cells that are harvested from embryos.See the full content of this document
Extract
Altered Skin Cells Alternative to Embryo
By Tina Hesman Saey
ST. LOUIS -- There are breakthroughs, and then there are breakthroughs.This one could be the medical equivalent of fire and the invention of the wheel.Scientists are giddy about the news that researche...See the full content of this document
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