Progress of NESCR

Progress of NESCR

Time and again, scientists involved in non-embryonic-stem-cell work, including even some who say they support lifting the funding ban, have commented that one of the important results of their and other's findings is that they would bypass the emotion-charged embryonic-tissue debate.

Among them:

UCLA's Hedrick told the Los Angeles Times his findings "could take the air right out of the debate about embryonic stem cells." The fat cells' surprising usefulness, he said, "makes it hard to argue that we should use embryonic cells."

Dr. Adam J. Katz, a member of a research team separate from Hedrick's that span fat into body tissues: "This discovery potentially could obviate the need for using fetal tissue."

Eric Olson, chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Almost "every other week there's another interesting finding of adult cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated."

Ira Black of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, referring to his research showing that various adult cells could be teased into becoming neuronal ones: This "essentially circumvents all the ethical concerns with the use of fetal tissues."

Markus C. Grompe, a professor of molecular medical genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University: "This would suggest that maybe you don't need any type of fetal stem cell at all -- that our adult bodies continue to have stem cells that can do this stuff."

Dr. Neil Theise of the New York University School of Medicine and co-author of a stem-cell study declared, "This study provides the strongest evidence yet that the adult body harbors stem cells that are as flexible as embryonic stem cells."

Dr. Denise Faustman of Harward. "It should be possible to use the same method to reverse Type 1 diabetes in humans," says Denise Faustman, the associate professor of medicine who leads the research. Setting up a trial for patients has already begun at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School killed cells responsible for the diabetes, then the animals' adult stem cells took over and regenerated missing cells needed to produce insulin and eliminate the disease.