Woman’s skin turned to embryo cells

November 30, 2007

Roger Highfield reports that the alternative to cloning continues to show promise. Skin cells from the face of 36 year old woman have been converted into her own embryonic like cells directly, in experiments that bring closer the day that doctors will not need to clone embryos to create any of a patient’s own cells and tissues for novel treatments.

In an advance that will calm ethical concerns, transform stem-cell research and accelerate progress toward treating patients with their own personalised replacement cells and tissue, American and Japanese researchers reported a few days ago they have reprogrammed ordinary human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, a remarkable advance that prompted Prof Ian Wilmut to say he would adopt the new method rather than the one his team used to clone Dolly. (Telegraph)