A type of stem cell found in early embryos, which is capable of developing into all (totipotent) or a wide range of (pluripotent) different body tissues.
After months of speculation, a US government agency last week revealed its proposed guidelines for the federal funding of research using human embryonic stem cells. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) propose to allow the public funding of stem cell research but recommend prohibiting publicly funded scientists from the process...
The Japanese government came under growing pressure to clarify its guidelines on human cloning after it was reported last week that researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology had carried out controversial cloning experiments last November. News of the research was reported in the Yomiuri Shimbun on 8...
Since the US breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research last December, American politicians have been limbering themselves up for a fight over whether such research should receive federal funding. But, as we report in this week's BioNews, it might not be as much of a battle as had been previously...
A senior Republican member of the US Senate spoke in support of allowing federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, increasing the chance that Congress will allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund such work. Strom Thurmond's (Republican, South Carolina) testimony was an indication that some US...
In the US, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted last week to delay a debate in the Senate over whether to allow federal funding of research involving embryonic stem cells. The Senate panel voted to drop from the Labor-Health and Human Services bill language originally added to create within the existing...
The US federal government should fund research using human embryonic stem cells but funding should not extend to the derivation of these cell from embryos left over from fertility clinics, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute for Civil Society. The two groups...
There was a new development in the ongoing debate over whether the US government should fund human embryonic stem cell research. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, the American Cancer Society (ACS) has withdrawn from a coalition that is lobbying Congress to allow federal funding of such research. The ACS...
Over 100 anti-abortionist campaigners in the US - led by Senator Sam Brownback (Republican, Kansas) and organised by the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Illinois - released a statement arguing that human embryonic stem cell research is scientifically unnecessary and urging Congress to fund alternative work. The statement was released...
A team of scientists has reported the discovery of a genetic mechanism that controls the shape of organs. Reporting in Nature, researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison describe a protein that regulates organ shape in the microscopic worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. Judith Kimble, a...
Prominent Republicans have spoken out against recommendations on the federal funding of embryo research made last month by President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission. A major battle looks likely when Congress considers the annual budget for the Department of Health and Human Services this summer. The Commission's report urges Congress...
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