What Condition Could Stem Cells Help First?

摘要

The answer almost doesn't matter, because stem-cell research has become the latest casualty of a plague sweeping biomedical science: advances in the lab aren't reaching patients. Only part of the blame for the logjam can be pinned on President George W. Bush's 2001 executive order that crippled human embryonic-stem-cell research, which means that the problem won't magically disappear when Bush leaves the White House next January.To be sure, his order has acted like ankle manacles on a racehorse: not even a thoroughbred can advance when researchers are prohibited from using federal money for studies on any stem-cell lines except those that were in existence in 2001. There were 71 then; 65 have since proved useless.