Pluripotent, but not quite global

As the U.S. government and NIH debate whether federal funding should be permitted for research involving the derivation or use of pluripotent human embryonic stem (ES) cells, academic researchers elsewhere in the world are finding fewer restrictions on their work. Thus academic research in the U.S. runs the risk of falling behind both privately funded interests and foreign academic competition with respect to therapeutic applications of human ES cells.

Researchers from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and colleagues published in the April issue of Nature Biotechnology the derivation of two lines of pluripotent human ES cells from human blastocysts (embryos) donated with informed consent by couples undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Singapore. The lines were cultured in vitro, and were shown to be pluripotent by their differentiation into numerous tissue types, including muscle and neurons, both in vitro and in vivo...