Nov. 21, 2007 In a paper to be published Nov. 22 in the online
edition of the journal Science, a team of University of
Wisconsin-Madison researchers reports the genetic reprogramming
of human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from
embryonic stem cells. The finding is not only a critical
scientific accomplishment, but potentially remakes the
tumultuous political and ethical landscape of stem cell biology
as human embryos may no longer be needed to obtain the blank
slate stem cells capable of becoming any of the 220 types of
cells in the human body. Perfected, the new technique would
bring stem cells within easy reach of many more scientists as
they could be easily made in labs of moderate sophistication,
and without the ethical and legal constraints that now hamper
their use by scientists. The new study was conducted in the
laboratory of UW-Madison biologist James Thomson, the scientist
who first coaxed stem cells from human embryos in 1998. It was
led by Junying Yu of the Genome Center of Wisconsin