The first e-newsletter of Nature Reports Stem Cells, out now and free (sign up at the home page), provides the latest news and information about research, policy, ethics, business and medicine of stem cell science. The editors’ welcome letter is here, and the associated blog, The Niche, is here.
A selection of this week’s stories:
Skin Cells to Stem Cells
Recent research promises embryonic stem cells, minus eggs and embryos. Three labs transformed mouse skin cells (fibroblasts) into cells that seem to pass muster as embryonic stem cells. If it works for humans, a simple biopsy could yield patient-specific sources of neurons, cardiomyocytes, or any other useful cell type. Read an interview with Shinya Yamanaka, a scientist who found the transforming recipe.
Man or Beast? Man and Beast!
Ian Wilmut is Nature Reports Stem Cells’ first Featured Editor. This week, he writes about how part-human part-animal cells could produce some of the most powerful tools yet for unraveling human disease, he talks about current research that excites him most, and he remembers Dolly.
Eggless cloning
Unfertilized eggs have long been the limiting resource for attempts to make genetically tailored human embryonic stem cells. If a new technique for cloning mice from fertilized eggs works in humans, they might not be necessary. This week Monya Baker writes about whether the new procedure for cloning using zygotes instead of oocytes changes the ethical terrain, and also tries to define just what eggs have that makes reprogramming work. Read an interview with Davor Solter, a scientist who, decades ago, convinced researchers that eggs were essential.
And now for something completely different
For a really fresh perspective on the technique for cloning from zygotes, read this fortnight’s Inside the Paper. Pioneered by Nature Reports Stem Cells, this new form of science reporting posts edited discussions between authors and reviewers from the peer review process. Learn what the foremost experts in the field had to say about a paper’s context, strengths, and shortcomings. See what the authors saw, and read their responses. (And you can add your own comments on The Niche.)
See all this, and more, at Nature Reports Stem Cells — and it is all free.