Originally Posted by borked

I agree, but the problem with stem cells from umbilical cords is that they are not pluripotent stem cells - ie they cannot give rise to any and every cell in your body - they are already programmed to go down a specific route.

The benefit of embryonic stem cells is that you can programme the cells to go down whatever path you choose (or at least in theory)... it's like writing an entire Google SE program to index the web, then saying, ah actually I need to rewrite that to index not only the web, but also all books ever published. Then changing and rewriting to index everything ever published.... it's always doing the same thing, but you keep up another branch. Much better is to start from the top and descend...., like index EVERYTHING ot start with, then filtering the branches later....


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that is in no way meant to detract from that excellent bit of research !