In a bid to overcome ethical conerns that have long hobbled
research, scientists have created fresh human stem-cell lines
without destroying human embryos from which they were derived,
media reports on Friday quoted the journal Cell Stem Cell.
In a bid to overcome
ethical conerns that have long hobbled research, scientists have
created fresh human stem-cell lines without destroying human
embryos from which they were derived, media reports on Friday
quoted the journal Cell Stem Cell.(File Photo)
Using the new technique, scientists extracted a
single cell from an eight-cell human embryo, then coaxed that cell
to become a master stem-cell line. That line was then manipulated
in the lab and became various other tissue types found in the body
such as nerve cells.
The hope of stem-cell science is that such freshly derived
tissue could one day be transplanted into patients to treat
diseases.
"Ours is a working technology, and we could supply these [fresh]
stem-cell lines to federal researchers immediately," said Robert
Lanza, senior author of the study.
In the paper, Dr. Lanza and his colleagues said that at least 20
percent of the plucked cells yielded stem-cell lines, and further
improvements took the efficiency as high as 50 percent.
(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2008)
