Gray Davis, the Governor of California, US, has signed a bill that allows state-funded human embryonic stem cell (ES cell) research to take place in the state. The move is a direct challenge to the policy of the Bush administration, and is expected to attract scientists to California who wish...
PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish-based biotechnology firm responsible for creating Dolly the sheep, announced last week that it is to close the stem cell research side of its business based at Roslin, near Edinburgh, after no buyer had been found for it. In a statement issued by the company, it was...
Researchers have come up with a genetic reason why Jewish people typically have fewer alcohol problems than non-Jews. The new study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, shows that a single gene mutation carried by more than a fifth of all Jews seems to protect them against...
Christopher Reeve, the American actor who once played 'Superman', has criticised the Roman Catholic Church and President Bush in an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper. Reeve, who was paralysed after a horse-riding accident seven years ago, claims the policies of the church and the president have 'obstructed research' - including...
Gene therapy has been used for the first time to relieve some of the effects of muscular dystrophy. The effects of the condition, a severe inherited muscle-wasting disease, were partially corrected in mice when a new gene was introduced that restored levels of dystrophin, a protein lacked by sufferers, to...
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Delays in US stem cell debate
by Dr Jess Buxton
Whatever happened to the US debate on embryo stem cell research and therapeutic cloning? Senators were due to consider two rival bills on cloning for medical research purposes back in June, but both were eventually withdrawn following procedural disputes. The confusion was seen as a blow to President Bush, who...