Stem Cell Breakthrough Uses No Embryos

[Faux pas]

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

NEW YORK - 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.

Scientists familiar with the work said scientific questions remain and that it's still important to pursue the cloning strategy, but that the new work is a major coup.

More...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120/ap_on_sc/stem_cells
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This is HUGE!

[Kansas Wyatt]

1. BushCo & Republicans, Inc. will be fighting it all the way, because...

It was never about them pandering to their religious nutz. They were only pandering to Big Pharma and the medical industry, by refusing to fund stem cell research.

[Faux pas]

2. Very true, but, now they can't claim 'religious' reasons for not

pushing this forward.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. And what's more, at least some of the religious right will come over to our side and push

for further research. There are plenty of them who are or have loved ones suffering from diseases or conditions that stem cell therapy could be beneficial for.

[Faux pas]

4. I imagine that almost every family in the country has been affected

in some way by the conditions and/or diseases that could be helped by something that, in reality, is so simple. Big Pharma should be banned from ever having anything to do with this. I'm sure they'll be jumping on the band wagon when they figure out how to make it extremely profitable.

[Lurking Dem]

5. Except for the whole

causing cancer thing, and likely won't work for autoimmune disorders (without significant gene jockeying) thing that sounds pretty cool.