UPDATED: ES Cells Save Embryos

onwisconsin.com and Washington Post are running pieces on Memorial Sloan-Kettering's work aimed at saving mouse embryos who were destined to die, using mouse embryonic stem cells. Robert Schatz of Scripps in La Jolla describes the procedure as "the birth of a new science." The knockout mice had extraordinary cardiac defects, and the stem cells did not change the DNA that had caused those defects. "Instead, [the stem cells] influenced the young mice's ability to express certain genes." Benezra: "stem cells act like nurses, restoring 'sick' [embryonic] cells to health." The human implications are already in trials using adult stem cells. This is huge news, and it will be interesting to see how quickly it makes its way into the mainstream media. The ethical issues are going to be no fun at all for those who oppose hES research. AND UPDATE: Here's the first piece on the ethics of the matter: Medical News of Today.