Advances made in stem-cell debate
A team of Texas and British researchers says it has produced large amounts of embryoniclike stem cells from umbilical cord blood, potentially ending the ethical debate affecting stem-cell research -- the need to kill human embryos.
The international researchers said the cells -- called cord-blood-derived-embryoniclike stem cells, or CBEs -- have the ability to turn into any kind of body tissue, like embryonic stem cells do, and can be mass-produced using technology derived from NASA.
"It looks very promising," said Dr. Randall Urban, an endocrinologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He stressed more research has to be done.
TMH's Bacon Bits aptly comments, this "finding, as well as other recently suggested alternatives to ethically and scientifically problematic embryonic stem (ES) cells, could begin to alter the ES stem cell debate from 'Why not?' to 'Why at all.'"
stem cells
Posted August 24, 2005 1:39 AM
