Researchers have been able to turn skin cells into stem cells in mice, giving researchers an unlimited supply of cells straight from the patient from which to creare therapies.

Three scientific teams published separate studies on Wednesday showing that embryonic stem cells can be made by reprogramming some of the genes in adult skin cells, without having to create an embryo – at least in mice.

Skin is also one of the few tissues that can bee grown and harvested. Now creating embryo-like stem cells does not mean therapies will be flowing anytime soon. The hill to climb for triggering these cells to transform into target cells to treat a specific disease (nuerons, kidney, liver, etc) is still decades away. The adult stem cells are easier to deal with because they are partially transformed already – taking care of part of the problem of controlling the change.

The real test will be if Embryonic Research is abandoned. It should be now that no one will have to kill a human being to get material for research. However, if my suspicions are right and this is about patenting human genes (which is not legal if taken from what the law considers a ‘human being’) then the research will go one. Because it is the laws of man which decide what is human. Not science or God. At least that is how people rationalize their greed.