Word: celling
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...study published today in the journal Cell Stem Cell, a team of Harvard researchers reveals that the dubious stem cells created by Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang were indeed historic, just not for the reason that he originally claimed...
...world heralded Hwang, who reported that he had created the world's first human embryonic stem cells using a delicate cloning technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). If Hwang had actually done what he had claimed, he would certainly have brought stem-cell-based therapies closer to reality, by making it possible to develop patient-specific cells to treat diseases from diabetes to Parkinson's. Two years after his announcement, however, allegations of fraud led to an investigation by an independent committee of scientists, which failed to verify his findings, and Hwang and his feat were discredited; last year...
...study, led by Dr. George Daley at the Children's Hospital in Boston, shows that Hwang's stem cell line contains the first human cells to be generated not through SCNT, but through a process called parthenogenesis, sometimes referred to as virgin birth, since development is sparked spontaneously from the egg alone, rather than from the union of egg and sperm. Parthenogenesis is always a risk during nuclear transfer, since the process involves extensive manipulation of the egg and its nucleus. At the time that Hwang's original paper was published in Science, stem cell researchers raised the possibility that...
Daley's subsequent detailed genetic analysis of Hwang's stem cells have clearly established that they come from a single egg, putting to rest nagging questions about what, if anything, Hwang and his team had actually accomplished. It may not have been Hwang's original goal, but successful parthenogenesis is no small feat. If he had reported it in 2004, says Daley, stem cell research might be much further along today - and enjoying a better reputation. "If we had known three years ago that it was possible to generate stem cells through parthenogenesis, then we almost certainly would already have...
...Renee Reijo Pera, director of the center for human embryonic stem cell research and education at Stanford University, agrees. "Hwang's actions were a great setback mentally for the nuclear transfer community," she says. "He really would have been far ahead of the rest of the field by just reporting these lines as parthenogenetic; they could have reported these legitimate results and been scientific heroes...