Dolly the sheep made history when she was cloned in 1996 in Scotland. Now, the scientist who developed the “nuclear transfer” method of stem cell cloning (forgive my very unscientific explanation of all this) has abandoned that the method to do stem cell work with a new method he says will be better accepted socially.
According to an Associated Press story, Ian Wilmut says a stem cell technique developed by the Japanese doesn’t rely on stem cells from embryos, hence will face less moral/ethical/religious opposition. The story points out that the controversial method of using embryonic stem cells, though touted as potentially wonderful, has never been made to work in humans — despite tens of millions of dollars of research.
Good luck to the new research, I say. I’ve heard many of the arguments for and against embryonic stem cell research, all the pros and cons about whether it is “human cloning” or simply work with undifferentiated cell tissue. No matter how it’s done or how it’s explained, the process is troubling. If this new method, which relies on fragments of skin instead of embryonic cells, works, then hooray for us all!
Ah, well, what do I know? I’m just a guy who reads the papers.
[tags]stem cells, embryonic stem cells, stem cell research, Dolly the sheep, Ian Wilmut, just a guy who reads the papers[/tag]
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