Editorial Board
A Fresh Controversy in Stem Cell Research Is Easily Solved: View
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Last week, with the announcement that scientists had created stem cells, not from embryos, but from adult cells, one controversy in biomedicine was replaced by another. No sooner had the problem of using human embryos been solved than a problem with selling human eggs sprang up. Let’s take these one at a time.
Stem cells are promising because, like those “letters of transit” in “Casablanca,” they are fill-in-the-blank cells that can be turned into any of the more complex cells in the human body. Therefore, they are a potential replacement for diseased or missing cells and a potential cure for a long list of illnesses.