Spotlight Saturday: Stem Cell Research

A good article on the latest in stem cell research.  Probably my favorite part of the article though was this excerpt:

And this isn’t just some obscure pro-life worry. In 2007, when the great breakthrough of induced pluripotent stem cell technology was announced, both of the scientists behind the new technique explained the moral concerns that drove their research. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka told the New York Times: “When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters. I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.” At the same time, Dr. James Thomson, the original discoverer of embryonic stem cells, told the Times: “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough. I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”

And here is another that deals with four basic myths of stem cell research (via Justin Taylor).

1. Obama has restored federal policy to what it was prior to Bush’s 2001 stem cell policy announcement.
2. The Bush policy was a ban on embryonic stem cell research.
3. There are no viable scientific alternatives to the destruction of human embryos.
4. The promise of pluripotent stem cells is quite certain.