Ethical, scientific breakthroughs seen in new stem-cell studies

Published: 2007-11-20

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Scientists and ethicists alike hailed as a breakthrough two studies showing that human skin cells can be reprogrammed to work as effectively as embryonic stem cells, thus negating the need to destroy embryos in the name of science. Separate studies from teams led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and Junying Yu and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison were published online Nov. 20 by the journals Cell and Science, respectively. "The methods outlined in these papers fully conform to what we have hoped to see for some time," said a statement from the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. "Such strategies should continue to be pursued and strongly promoted, as they should help to steer the entire field of stem-cell research in a more explicitly ethical direction by circumventing the moral quagmire associated with destroying human embryos," it added. By adding four genes to the skin cells, the scientists were able to create stem cells that genetically match the donor and have the ability to become any of the 220 types of cells in the human body.

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