New potential for human embryonic stem cells
Gearhart, J.
Science 282(5391): 1061-1062
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9841453 Document Number: 486612
In this issue, J. A. Thomson and colleagues report success in growing human embryonic stem cell lines in culture. Pluripotential stem cells, present in the early stages of embryo development, can give rise to all of the cell types in a fetus and adult and have the capacity for self-renewal. A renewable, tissue culture source of human cells that can differentiate into many cell types would have wide applications in basic research and transplantation therapies. Thomson's group at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center in Madison, in collaboration with the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and the University of Wisconsin, has derived five independent cell lines from the inner cell masses of 14 human blastocysts.