Is Stem Cell Controversy Gone?

Scott: You touched on stem cell therapy a little bit. In this country it's almost taboo, it's something that we don't like to talk about...

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.: Well, let's be clear about that. It's not actually the case that stem cell therapy is in any sense taboo in the US. What is taboo is embryonic stem cell therapy. 

Scott: Okay.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.: The identification of, and isolation of, cells from early stage embryos by a process that destroys that embryo. People have a problem with that because they are concerned that the embryo may already be a proper human being. 

Scott: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.: Now, that is pretty much history now. Most people don't really understand this yet, even though there's already been a Nobel Prize awarded for this discovery. The fact is, now we can take adult cells from a human being that needs a stem cell treatment. We can take them into the lab, and what's called 'de-differentiate' them back into an embryonic-like state, without actually creating, let alone destroying, an embryo. Then we can re-differentiate those cells into whatever direction we want, create adult stem cells of a particular nature that we can then use therapeutically. 

Scott: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.:This has enormous advantages in terms of the actual therapy, in particular, because the cells come from the prospective patient and therefore there isn't the problem of immune rejection. So people who get these therapies do not need to have immune suppressants all the rest of their lives.

Scott: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.: But also, of course, it completely addresses these ethical-and indeed a bunch of technical difficulties like the availability of enough unfertilized eggs, which was always required for the creation of embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfers, it's called.