Japanese and North American researchers have achieved transforming the skin cells of mice into embryonic cells, which have the ability to evolve into specific tissues such as the cardiac, hepatic, etc.  If this technique achieves to develop in human beings, a huge advance in regenerative medicine will be achieved, avoiding the immense and never ending debate on the cells that come from human embryos.

The possibility of transforming stem cells into organic tissues is the great hope for curing many incurable diseases, and also for replacing the transplant organs that today come from donors and don’t cover the immense worldwide demand.  Until today, the use of these cells obtained from human embryos had caused a strong ethical debate.  But if these cells can be obtained from the skin of the same patient, not only the ethical problem can be avoided, but also the immunologic rejection caused by the implant of biological material from another human being.

The new technique, developed by Shinya Yamanaka, from the University of Kyoto, is a lot easier to apply than the one that had been developed, called “nuclear transfer”, and also doesn’t involve the expensive and polemic use of human ovules.  David Scadden, from Harvard Medicine School, said that finding that cells can be reprogrammed by simple biochemical techniques “is truly extraordinary, and honestly most researchers thought it would take a decade”.

Source: LatinSalud.com with data from La Nación, 08-06-07

Wells and Morton, two north American dentists, discovered the principles of anesthesia.