This is the second breakthrough announced in the past six months. In December, scientists were able to reprogram skin stem cells to to behave like embryonic stem cells and use them to treat mice with sickle-cell anemia.
Yesterday, MIT announced that a team of scientists has been able to reprogram skin cells and improve symptoms of Parkinson’s in mice.
This one is personal for me, as my mother suffers from Parkinson’s (at least that is the latest diagnosis). It also illustrates why embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary and is becoming increasing irrelevant.
Now that scientists have been able to turn skin cells into pluripotent stem cells, why do we need to fund embryo destroying research. Even if you don’t see the embryo as a person, it is human life, therefore it is a much tougher moral quandary than a skin cell.