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Press Release
Dolly’s Cloner:
Stem Cell Technique Deserves Nobel Prize!
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Creates Functional Equivalent of Embryonic Stem Cells,
No Killing Embryos/Cloning.
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Cheaper, Easier To Do, More Efficient. Hottest Thing In
Stem Cell Research.
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Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Has Lost Political Traction.
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Discovery Equivalent To Discovering DNA Double Helix
Structure
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 5, 2008
The following statement can
be attributed to Nevada LIFE President Don Nelson
Dolly The Sheep
Cloner Ian Wilmut says that the discoverer of the new stem
cell technique which creates the functional equivalent of
embryonic stem cells without cloning and without killing
human embryos, deserves a Nobel Prize.
Wilmut says it is equivalent to discovering the double
helix structure of DNA.
In
November,
University of Kyoto professor Shinya Yamanaka
and
University of Wisconsin
Researcher
James Thomson announced
that they had reprogrammed adult stem cells back to an
embryonic-like state.
The new stem cells are called Induced
Pluripotent Stem Cells. Both successfully used
Yamanaka’s direct reprogramming technique in humans
that he created using mice.
The technique is cheaper, easier, more
efficient and does not carry the moral problems of human
cloning or killing human embryos.
Wilmut says studies to develop embryonic
stem cells from cloned human embryos will be unnecessary.
Wilmut believes
Yamanaka deserves a Nobel Prize.
Embryonic stem cell research has lost political
traction with the advances in Induced Pluripotent Stem
Cells and the advances in non-embryonic stem cell
research. There are over
70
benefits and over 1000 human trials using
non-embryonic stem cells. In February JAMA noted
improvement for patients with autoimmune and cardiac
diseases using non-embryonic stem cell research. A group
of
diabetics has gone off insulin for long periods
after treatment with their stem cells, and last month
wounded soldiers' shattered bones were
repaired using their own stem cells.
After
$2
billion in funding, there are no human benefits
or trials using embryonic stem cells.
Wilmut says that the new research is "extremely
exciting and astonishing" and that he has no doubts “that
in the long term, direct reprogramming will be more
productive” than human cloning-called therapeutic
cloning, which creates a cloned embryo to be destroyed for
stem cells.
The NIH and
states should stop funding embryonic stem cell research
and instead fund more promising alternatives. Congress
should move to outlaw human cloning by passing the
Brownback-Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act to
protect and prevent tampering with human life.
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