Scientists Moving Forward with New Stem Cell Discovery!

Late last year, scientists in Japan and Wisconsin announced that they were able to use ordinary human skin cells to create iPS cells which appear to have the same capabilities as embryonic stem cells. The moral brilliance of this discovery is that they did not have to destroy embryos to obtain the cells. Other labs around the world have already replicated this process.

This discovery simply blew up the idea that we have to kill living human embryos to advance medical treatments. And, by taking cells from a specific human and treating that same person with their own cells, the rejection factor is eliminated. That blows up the idea that we need human cloning to address the rejection problem.

Some scientists dismissed the discovery, stating that the method used to create iPS cells had tumor-formation problems. Professor Shinya Yamanaka, the Japanese scientist who made the discovery, immediately solved that problem and is now moving ahead to create iPS cells from human patients suffering from ten different diseases. Great news indeed for morality in research and humanity in general!

Barbara