Prominent scientists comment about recent exciting developments in stem cell science

“The recent announcements of the disease-specific cell lines from
reprogrammed cells and the reprogramming of specialized cells are exciting advances that provide important new tools to study diseases and to search for new therapies. Nonetheless, as Shinya Yamanaka, Kevin Eggan, George Daley, Doug Melton, Rudolf Jaenisch, Jamie Thomson and other prominent researchers responsible for these advances have pointed out, these advances do not alleviate the need for embryonic stem cell research. Research must proceed with all types of stem cells, including embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and reprogrammed adult cells in order to use all of the weapons at our disposal in the war against disease."

— Sean Morrison, Director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology. August 27, 2008

"We wouldn’t be where we are today without working with human embryonic stem cells. They provide a unique window into human development and disease. We still need those."

— Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute about the cell transformation paper in Nature, August 27, 2008. (Wired)

“ Even though the iPS methodology gives us a very facile way for making disease specific lines, it does not eliminate the value or the need for continuing to study human embryonic stem cells. The Human ES cells are really the gold standard for the pluripotent stem cell type. They currently have no genetic modifications, and at least for the foreseeable future — and I would argue even forever — they are going to be extremely valuable tools.”

— George Q. Daley, Associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston from the Harvard Press Conference about reprogrammed disease line derivation in Cell, August 21, 2008.

“It’s essential to note that we couldn’t possibly be where we are now without first doing extensive work with human embryonic stem cells. It will be essential to continue to do work with embryonic stem cells as they remain the stem cell gold standard.”

— Kevin Eggan, Ph.D. of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, from the Harvard Press Conference, about ALS-disease lines in Science, July 31, 2008.

“Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research....We simply cannot invest all our hopes in a single approach. Federal funding is essential for both adult and embryonic stem cell research, even as promising alternatives are beginning to emerge...”

— Excerpt from Standing in the Way of Stem Cell Research, Washington Post, Alan I. Leshner and James A. Thomson, December 3, 2007.

“...the recent advancements in iPS cell research would not be possible if it were not for the many years of dedicated hES cell research [human embryonic stem cell research] that preceded them. We cannot support the notion that iPS cell research can advance without hES [human embryonic stem] cell research.”

— Shinya Yamanaka, Insoo Hyun, Konrad Hochedlinger, and Rudolf Jaenisch Cell Stem Cell, October 2007.