Non-embryo update

Remember how I counseled wariness? Well here's something buried in the New York Times article about the findings:

An immediate issue is whether the technique can be reinvented for human cells. One problem is that the mice have to be interbred, which cannot be done with people. Another is that the cells must be infected with the gene-carrying virus, which is not ideal for cells to be used in therapy. A third issue is that two of the genes in the recipe can cause cancer. Indeed 20 percent of Dr. Yamanaka’s mice died of the disease. Nonetheless, several biologists expressed confidence that all these difficulties would be sidestepped somehow.

Comments

[anon]

i disagree. people CAN be interbred. in fact, many of the people opposing embryo research probably WERE interbred.