Still banging the dead-end drum of stem cell research, the Democratic administration has been ignoring the cell-reprogramming breakthroughs that promise rapid cures for Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and other degenerative nerve diseases. The new approach bypasses problems with rejection, a bugaboo which stem cell researchers had struggled for years to overcome.
A story appearing in the Times reports that researchers have for the first time reprogrammed human skin cells to become fully functioning neurons.
The new discovery appears likely to put the embryonic stem cell controversy to rest. In the United States embryonic stem cell research had for years been a "wedge issue" which Republicans and Democrats could rely upon to keep their respective constituencies in the fold.
Researchers had focused on embryonic stem cells in the hope of curing neuro-degenerative ills. The new research offers the hope of bypassing embryonic stem cells and so also avoiding problems with rejection. In the latest research, human skin cells were reprogrammed into fully functioning nerve cells in as little as two weeks.
In a possibly related move, the maintainers of Nature Reports Stems Cells announced that the site would no longer be updated.
