Word: melton
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...genes, he told his audience, was all it took to undo a lifetime's worth of delicate genetic tapestry. No need for eggs, no need for embryos. Could it be that easy? Were the debate and controversy over embryonic stem cells now rendered moot? "It was unquestionably unexpected," says Melton of the breakthrough...
...Melton faced mounting political pressure too. In 2004, voters in California approved a measure providing $3 billion in state funding to embryonic-stem-cell research. That threatened to draw scientists in the stem-cell community west, and Melton took pains to foster a "band of brothers" mentality. "I tried to create a cocoon here," he says, "and tell people that your job is to focus on the science. Don't worry what the politicians say." By then, Melton's team was one of only a handful in the country working on embryonic stem cells and was making headway in teasing...
...Clearly, Melton does not shrink from a fight. As Washington's squeeze on stem-cell research tightened in the early part of this decade, he decided to take action, providing life support for what remained of the U.S. stem-cell community. Not convinced that an entire field could make much progress relying on a few dozen cell lines of questionable quality, in 2004 he used funds HSCI receives from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as from Harvard alumni, and developed a more streamlined method for generating stem-cell lines from embryos...
...charged with dispensing state money for embryonic-stem-cell research. "He turned the tables on an Administration that was incredibly negative toward stem cells and showed [it] we are not going to tolerate being put out of this field by ideological views that we don't think are correct." Melton's motivation was, again, both professional and intensely personal. Two months after Bush announced his ban, Melton's daughter Emma, then 14, also received a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes...
...news was huge - but it was also a lie. In 2006, Hwang admitted he had falsified his results. (Melton's colleague at HSCI, Kevin Eggan, finally created embryonic stem cells from patients in 2008.) Although Hwang became a pariah, he had the right idea. Melton and others had been trying to do just what the Korean scientist claimed to have done - grow a new population of a patient's own cells. The key to the process is a supply of fresh, good-quality human eggs, which incubate skin cells taken from a patient. Building up such a stockpile, however, proved...