Let’s Be the Leader in Ethical Stem Cell Banking

by Jennifer Lahl, CBC President

Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University has proposed we establish stem cell banks for stem cell produced from donors’ ordinary skin cells. His new breakthrough, taking skin cells and reprogramming them to ‘embryonic like’ cells has already been replicated and proven easy and inexpensive to do.

Yamanaka said, “By making such a bank, we can cut down the cost of treatment and also we can shorten the period which is required for the generation of iPS cells,” he said. “In reality, tailor-made medicine using iPS cells is not so ideal.”

The U.S. is already a leader in cord blood stem cell banking, so why not expand upon that practice and add skin cell banks!

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