Researchers tout major advance in ethical stem cells

Two teams of Chinese scientists have reportedly made a major advance in the development of a new kind of stem cell that doesn't involve destroying embryos.

For the first time, researchers say they were able to produce live mice from stem cells that were induced from skin tissue of adult mice and then reprogrammed. And while there were abnormalities and unusual deaths with some of the first generation of mice, one team produced enough normal mice this way to create hundreds of second and third generation mice.

"We demonstrated the practicality of using iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells)," said Fanyi Zeng, associate director of the Shanghai Institute of Medical Genetics and co-author of the larger, more successful study.

The study appears in the scientific journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell. Its authors cautioned against making premature conclusions as there’s “a lot more [to do] before we can even mention humans".

The work has been hailed as important because it shows that the new type of stem cells "satisfy the most stringent criteria of embryonic stem cells - the ability to make a mouse entirely from cells in a petri dish", Dr George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Children's Hospital of Boston told The Associated Press.

That’s especially good news for those who are against embryonic stem cell research, which has been the source of great controversy around the world.

Though in recent years there have been several reports regarding the potential use of human embryonic stem cells as models for human genetic diseases, many within the pro-life community have stood against research on such cells as the processes involved in them require the destruction of embryos.

Critics also note that embryonic stem cell research has yielded no cures to date despite the highly touted potential of embryonic stem cells to develop into any cell of the body.

Adult stem cells (taken from bone marrow and other tissue sources) and neonatal stem cells (from umbilical cord blood and the placenta), meanwhile, have been used in successfully treating over 100 diseases and have been hailed by some as having many superior qualities to embryonic stem cells.