Induced pluripotent stem cells: one week later
A little more follow up to all the news from last week:
+ While most of the popular coverage of stem cells focuses on using them as a therapies or replacement tissues, it's looking like, at least right now, the most promising application of iPS cells will be for modeling human disease. Over at the Stem Cell Blog, Eric Chiao explains why that's so important.
+ Speaking of using stem cells as therapies, Andrew Pollock reports in NYT today about why that's still a long way off. The potential of the cells to turn cancerous is one of the big obstacles.
+ Low in that NYT article there's mention of another important aspect of this issue: intellectual property. Pollack reports that WARF will not be requiring academic scientists to get a license to use Wisconsin's version of the cell reprogramming technique.
+ Rick Weiss reports in WaPo that last week's news "generated economic and geopolitical tremors through California, New York and about half a dozen other states that have invested -- in some cases heavily -- in embryonic stem cell programs and research centers." Look for more about this here on the blog-dot this week.
+ The "President Bush helped bring this advance about" story line (alluded to in a White House statement, and touted by an administration official in NYT) seems to have become a conservative talking point. See Michael Gerson in WaPo and Rich Lowry in the National Review.
+ And about maybe finding some kind of lasting political and cultural piece on this topic, John Tierney writes that we shouldn't bet on it.
-Greg Dahlmann
Earlier coverage of induced pluripotent stem cells on blog.bioethics.net
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