The new year opens with one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical science since Ian Wilmut used cells from an adult sheep to clone Dolly the lamb in 1996. Human stem cells, which for all intents and purposes are identical to the highly prized but controversial ones harvested from human embryos, now can be made from adult skin, without using embryos or eggs. Separate research groups headed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin unveiled the technique in late November. A third group, from Harvard, confirmed that work barely a month later. It seems the path to curing diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s, and many inherited disorders has a shortcut. In fact, stem cell pioneer Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., just showed that a mouse version of these cells cures mice with sickle cell anemia.
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