Scientists have been able to re-program skin cells into stem cells: cells that can be turned into any kind of cell in the body! - Although Not 100% exactly the same as stem cells from embryonic sources (yet), scientists think they may actually be easier to match to a patients (prevent rejection) since they could be made from the patients own skin!

Here is an excerpt from the article:

A patient’s skin cells, for example, could be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells. Those embryonic stem cells could then be prodded into becoming various cells types — beta islet cells to treat diabetes, hematopoetic cells to create a new blood supply for a leukemia patient, motor neuron cells to treat Parkinson’s disease.

“Our reprogrammed human skin cells were virtually indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells,” said Plath, an assistant professor of biological chemistry, a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and lead author of the study. “Our findings are an important step towards manipulating differentiated human cells to generate an unlimited supply of patient specific pluripotent stem cells. We are very excited about the potential implications.”

The entire article can be found at: Science Daily.

My Take: I love it! Scientists claimed that the only way to get stem cells that would work was from embryos… (the easy road). Many people were unhappy at the closed-mindedness of these scientists… But fortunately, other scientists kept working on the problem - in an more ethical way… And found away that is actually BETTER!  What does this teach us? ALWAYS QUESTION AUTHORITY! Scientists (especially in academia) are always pompously telling people what is and isn’t possible - BULL! The next time someone tells you “that’s impossible”, CONSIDER THE SOURCE! Sure, it may be “impossible” TODAY!, but don’t give-up hope - The world will be inherited by those who are POSITIVE - And Continue To Learn And Grow!

Give POSITIVE People enough time (AND DON’T KEEP TELLING THEM IT CAN’T BE DONE!) and they’ll figure out anything! History is full of examples of people (usually not from the establishment)… that question (or are un-aware of what “can’t” be done!) These “amatuer” scientists, inventors, dreamers, artists etc, often see things differently (usually because their creative “spirit” did NOT get “broken” in the first 6 years of life - usually by people (teachers) telling them NO!, Don’t Do That!, Sit Still, Stop Daydreaming… etc. It is typically these people (who think “outside-the-box) That usually “shock” traditional science into thinking abouts at act I think this is REALLY GREAT news for the treatment of diseases that NEGATIVE PEOPLE (whiners… Wha… Whaa…. Whaaaa…) said could ONLY be treatable with embryonic stem cells - Well, guess what! Because there were positive people who didn’t give up… we’ll soon be able to treat many (up until now) incurable diseases! So, if you have a bad liver, heart, etc. all they’ll soon be able to inject you with your own re-programmed cells of the type of organ tissue you need - and since it’s made from YOUR own bodies tissue, they won’t be rejected!!! - I think there will be some Nobel prizes won for this - Congratulations!!! You have revolutionized medicine!