Embryonic Stem Cell Research—Recent Scientific Advances

The following information was taken from an article in the Sacramento Bee (March 11, 2009) by Kathleen Parker:

            The insistence on using embryonic stem cells rests on the argument that they are pluripotent, capable of becoming any kind of cell. This has all changed since 2007 with the discovery of “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS). These cells can be produced from a skin cell by injecting genes that force it to revert to its primitive “blank slate” form with all the same pluripotent capabilities of embryonic stem cells. Time magazine named iPS innovation No. 1 on its “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries” of 2007, and the journal Science rated it the No. 1 breakthrough of 2008. Dr. Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, abandoned his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers “may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate.” A few days ago, Dr. Bernadine Healy, Director of the National Institutes of Health under the first President Bush, wrote in U.S. News & World Report that these recent developments “reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells…are obsolete.”