Scientists are knocking down the hurdles to the full potential of stem cells, one by one. The latest to fall is the use of SCNT in primate cells:

In a world first Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Centre in Beaverton, USA, provided evidence that he had successfully achieved somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in a primate. This means he managed to clone a rhesus monkey embryo from adult cells. Previously it has proved impossible to derive embryonic cells from adult cells in primates. He then went on to derive two batches of embryonic stem cells from the cloned embryo.

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And as Natalipov dramatically demonstrated in his presentation with a slide of beating cells, the CRES cells passed another test of stem cells and where able to transform into either throbbing heart cells or neurons.

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Natalipov believes that standard cloning techniques have been the reason why experts have had such little luck in cloning adult primate cells before now. Removing chromosomes from the egg (to prepare it to accept DNA from the adult cell being cloned) relies on visualizing them using a dye and UV light - a procedure that damages essential factors that allow the resultant cell to reconfigure itself as an embryo, he said. Furthermore, said Natalipov, the use of electricity to fuse the donor skin cell to the chromosome-free egg, may cause the egg to activate or reconfigure itself prematurely. Natalipov’s alternative technique visualizes an egg's chromosomes without the dye or UV light, but through using polarized light to detect fibres that carry the chromosomes instead.

Such a simple thing in hindsight - crude tools mean crude results, and don't damage the raw materials. The ability to create, culture and modify totipotent cells from adult cells is a core feat of cellular reprogramming upon which a whole range of new medicine can be built. If Natalipov is correct in his identification of the problem, the whole field will speed up quite rapidly - the low efficiency of these processes to date has been a drag on progress.

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