There Was Another Way: Non-Embryonic Stem Cells

The New York Times actually produces excellent article!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/science/11prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3

Scientist at Work | Shinya Yamanaka

Risk Taking Is in His Genes

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: December 11, 2007

KYOTO, Japan — Inspiration can appear in unexpected places. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka found it while looking through a microscope at a friend’s fertility clinic.

photo by Masafumi Yamamoto for The New York Times

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and others have turned adult skin cells into human embryonic stem cells, without using an embryo.

Dr. Yamanaka was an assistant professor of pharmacology doing research involving embryonic stem cells when he made the social call to the clinic about eight years ago. At the friend’s invitation, he looked down the microscope at one of the human embryos stored at the clinic. The glimpse changed his scientific career.

“When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters,” said Dr. Yamanaka, 45, a father of two and now a professor at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University. “I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.”