TUESDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- With new rules in place that
lifted restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem
cell research, health-care advocates are looking down the line
and wondering when the first medical advances based on stem
cells might occur. That will take some years yet, according to
experts in the field. And when breakthroughs do come, they might
not be what most people think of when they envision potential
stem cell therapies. The best-known potential use of human
embryonic stem cells involves cell-based therapy, where stem
cells are used to repair damaged heart muscle or severed spinal
cords. But the first advances are more likely to come from stem
cells used to research genetic diseases and develop therapies
and cures for those diseases, said Story Landis, director of the
U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and
chairman of a stem cell task force at the National Institutes of
Health. "I am sure we will see advances from those kind of
studies before we w