NEW YORK — For all the excitement, big questions remain about how to turn this week’s stem cell breakthrough into new treatments for the sick. And it’s not clear when they’ll be answered.
Scientists have to learn more about the new kind of cell the landmark research produced. They have to find a different way to make it, to avoid a risk of cancer. And even after that, there are plenty of steps needed to harness this laboratory advance for therapy. So if you ask when doctors and patients will see new treatments, scientists can only hedge.
“I just can’t tell you dates,” says the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s James Thomson, one of the scientists in the U.S. and Japan who announced the breakthrough on Tuesday.