Yay, science!

This appears to be nothing short of amazing news: Teams of scientists working independently in Wisconsin and Japan have both discovered a way to make human skin cells act like embryonic stem cells.

In other words, all the adaptability that makes embryonic cells more promising than adult ones for things like tissue regeneration and disease research, without destroying embryos in the process. And cheaper, too!

I'll let the good folks at NRO say what needs to be said regarding the politics and bioethics of it. Certainly, President Bush doesn't come out looking too bad.

I commend the full New York Times piece to your reading -- it's rather long, but it lays out all the details and implications quite well. Also relevant are the (seemingly minor) hurdles still to be overcome, which don't get much ink in the understandably excited conservative press. The relevant part of the story:

"He and Dr. Yamanaka caution, though, that they still must confirm that the reprogrammed human skin cells really are the same as stem cells they get from embryos. And while those studies are under way, Dr. Thomson and others say, it would be premature to abandon research with stem cells taken from human embryos.

"Another caveat is that, so far, scientists use a type of virus, a retrovirus, to insert the genes into the cells’ chromosomes. Retroviruses slip genes into chromosomes at random, sometimes causing mutations that can make normal cells turn into cancers.

"One gene used by the Japanese scientists actually is a cancer gene.

"The cancer risk means that the resulting stem cells would not be suitable for replacement cells or tissues for patients with diseases, like diabetes, in which their own cells die. But they would be ideal for the sort of studies that many researchers say are the real promise of this endeavor — studying the causes and treatments of complex diseases.

"For example, researchers could make stem cells from a person with a disease like Alzheimer’s and turn the stem cells into nerve cells in a petri dish. Then they might learn what goes awry in the brain and how to prevent or treat the disease.

"But even the retrovirus drawback may be temporary, scientists say. Dr. Yamanaka and several other researchers are trying to get the same effect by adding chemicals or using more benign viruses to get the genes into cells. They say they are starting to see success."

Kick ass.