http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-stemcells-09-oct09,0,6323974.story
Less than a year after a Wisconsin team helped discover a major alternative to human embryonic stem cells, the Madison scientists say more than 800 labs have begun using the approach, suggesting that many stem-cell researchers are starting to move beyond controversial embryonic sources for their work.
Such shifts may reframe the emotionally fraught debate over stem cellsâ??an issue that has ignited passions across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have indicated they would lift President George W. Bush’s restrictions on research funding, though Sen. Barack Obama has been more adamant than Sen. John McCain.
The biologist doing more than anyone else to stir the debate is University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson, who co-discovered human embryonic stem cells a decade ago, in November 1998. Last year Thomson shook the field again when his lab and a Japanese team showed a way of genetically reprogramming adult skin cells to act like stem cells, including the ability to form any of the body’s tissues.