A Recent Advance in Stem-Cell Research

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese scientist has come up with a way to make ordinary skin cells behave like embryonic stem cells. He was able to find four genes that could be inserted into the DNA of mice skin cells which caused them to revert to an embryonic-like state. He says that this research could lead to a way grow tissues or even whole organs from one’s own cells, reducing the need for organ transplants. Dr. Yamanaka says that it would more likely be used a research tool in the development of drugs by the pharmaceutical industry. If Dr. Yamanaka’s techniques are extended to human beings, then the cells could be used to make a less costly to way screen drugs for side effects. He thinks that someone will do this in within a year.

All this could be done without any funding of embryonic stem-cell research. All this could be done even if embryonic stem-cell research were banned. We don’t even need government funding of any medical research at all. The pharmaceutical industry should pay for it since they are the ones benefiting from it. "I don't know how they can spend $3 billion in 10 years on stem cells," Yamanaka says, referring to the recent Schwartzeneger initiative to fund stem-cell research.

Yamanaka has made this advance which would help the cause of defunding and criminalizing the cannibalizing of human beings and he thinks that embryos shouldn’t be regarded as just cells. However, he is still willing to take an innocent life to save another. He stops short of being 100% pro-life because he says that the embryos should be used if they are going to be thrown away anyway. But they don’t have to be thrown away or cannibalized. They could be protected by law just as all other human beings should be.

Dr. Yamanaka’s work is published in the journal Nature.