Researchers grow stem cells from human skin

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have successfully isolated stem cells from human skin, expanded them in the laboratory and coaxed them into becoming fat, muscle and bone cells. The study, one of the first studies to show the ability of a single adult stem cell to become multiple tissue types, is reported today in Stem Cells and Development.

"These cells should provide a valuable resource for tissue repair and for organs as well," said Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and senior researcher on the project. "Because these cells are taken from a patient's own skin, there would not be problems with organ or tissue rejection."

(etc, click the title for the full story. This is a research direction that should be pursued further; it has the potential to circumvent the whole ethical issue with embryonic stem cells, and to make it much simpler to get around rejection problems without resorting to nucleonic transfer techniques. Excellent!)