Excited by their potential for biomedical research and therapy and lured by the ease with which they can be created, many researchers are looking into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Created from adult cells by a simple genetic trick, iPS cells seem to have regained an embryonic 'sternness' that might allow them to become any type of cell in the body. The concept is so appealing that some scientists and policy-makers even argue that related approaches such as therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem-cell research, which require the destruction of embryos, should be halted. But for biologists, iPS cells still present a black box.
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