Stem Cell Timeline: The History of a Medical Sensation
By Andy Coghlan,
New Scientist
| 01. 30. 2014
Stem cells are the cellular putty from which all tissues of the body are made. Ever since human embryonic stem cells were first grown in the lab, researchers have dreamed of using them to repair damaged tissue or create new organs, but such medical uses have also attracted controversy. Yesterday, the potential of stem cells to revolutionise medicine got a huge boost with
news of an ultra-versatile kind of stem cell from adult mouse cells using a remarkably simple method. This timeline takes you through the ups and downs of the stem cell rollercoaster.
1981, Mouse beginningsMartin Evans of Cardiff University, UK, then at the University of Cambridge, is first to
identify embryonic stem cells – in mice.
1997, Dolly the sheepIan Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh
unveil Dolly the sheep, the first artificial animal clone. The process involves fusing a sheep egg with an udder cell and implanting the resulting hybrids into a surrogate mother sheep. Researchers speculate that similar hybrids made by fusing human embryonic stem cells with adult cells...
Related Articles
By Jason Kehe, Wired | 04.11.2024
God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born...
By Neel Shah, The PrePrint | 04.11.2024
Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...
By Judith Levine, The Intercept | 04.04.2024
WHEN THE ALABAMA Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos were “extrauterine children,” it did more than imperil the future of in vitro fertilization in Alabama and, potentially, the U.S. The ruling, on the claimed “wrongful death” of frozen embryos...
By Justin McCurry, The Guardian | 04.01.2024
A Chinese scientist who was imprisoned for his role in creating the world’s first genetically edited babies says he has returned to his laboratory to work on the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other genetic diseases.
In an interview with a...