The ultimate goal of stem-cell research is to replace malfunctioning cells with healthy ones--specially made for each patient--for people with, say, diabetes or a spinal-cord injury. Now researchers report they are one step closer to making that happen.
They have generated the first human stem cells using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the same process that gave rise to Dolly in 1996 from a ewe's cell. One of the new lines came from a healthy adult, the other from a patient with Type 1 diabetes. The breakthrough suggests that it may be possible to grow patient-specific stem cells using SCNT. One...