Word: researching
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...then, astonishingly, it did. In June 2006 a modest researcher from Japan made a startling announcement at the International Society for Stem Cell Research conference in Toronto. Shinya Yamanaka quietly described a study in which he took skin cells from a mouse and stirred them in with varying genetic cocktails made from a recipe list of 30 genes known to be important in development. When he hit on the right four genes and inserted them into the cells aboard retroviruses, he wiped the cells clean, reprogramming them and returning them to an embryo-like state without ever creating the embryo...
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...
...Doug drew a line in the sand," says Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the organization 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...
...part owing to the restrictive U.S. policy, the momentum in stem-cell research seemed to shift overseas. In 2004, South Korean researcher Hwang Woo Suk announced that he had generated the first human embryonic stem cells from healthy people - and in the following year, from afflicted patients themselves - using an abbreviated cloning method. The latter feat would mean that cardiac patients could essentially donate themselves a healthy new heart without fear of rejection...
Even if iPS cells do not prove as stable and as versatile as embryonic stem cells when they're transplanted into patients, they remain a powerful research tool. And if nothing else, they will have opened our eyes to the remarkable plasticity of biology and made possible new ways of thinking about repairing and replacing damaged tissues so we may consider not only treating but also curing disease. "It's a wonderful time," says Scadden. "Keep your seat belt on, because this ride is going to be wild...