Researchers Turn Cloned Human Embryo into Working Stem Cell Line
Human Embryonic Stem Cells Vojtech.dostal via WikimediaBut wait, there's a catch Potentially big stem cell news out of the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory today in Nature, though in our experience it's always good to temper one's expectations when it comes to these sorts of things. After all, we've thought we cracked the code on embryonic stem cell cloning technology more than once, only to find this kind of biology is much more difficult and complex than originally thought. Nonetheless, researchers have reprogrammed an adult human egg to an embryonic state and used it to create a self-reproducing embryonic stem cell line. And that's a big deal. But it's not the holy grail of stem cell research. The cell line they created doesn't produce true clones containing perfect copies of the donor's DNA, and therefore are more or less clinically ineffective. But the development does represent a step forward for...