"Advanced Cell Technology Inc., based in Alameda, Calif., and Worcester, Mass., announced Aug. 23 that a team of its scientists had "successfully generated human embryonic stem cells using an approach that does not harm embryos."
An article on the research was published Aug. 23 in the online edition of the science journal Nature.
The technique involves removal of a single cell from an early, eight-cell embryo called a blastomere. The researchers claimed that the method has been successfully used in more than 1,000 cases of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, in which one cell is removed to test for genetic diseases and the embryo is implanted if no disease is found.
Up to now, stem-cell research involving the destruction of human embryos has taken place when the embryo is made up of about 150 cells.
But no embryo survived the research carried out by the Advanced Cell Technology scientists, Doerflinger said. Sixteen embryos were killed to retrieve 91 blastomeres, from which two stem-cell lines were derived, the research showed."
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
