How Important Is Therapeutic Cloning?
Wired asks how far stem cell research into regenerative medicine can go without using the technology of therapeutic cloning (also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer). Therapeutic cloning "will likely be a conduit to therapies, not therapies themselves, at least not until scientists develop much more efficient therapeutic cloning methods. 'The value of nuclear transfer is not for cell therapy, it's to do molecular research to figure out how genetic disease is manifest,' said Tom Okarma, CEO of Geron." Immune reaction to implanted stem cells is a big issue in current research - one that early regenerative therapies are sidestepping by culturing adult stem cells from the patient for reimplantation.
Link: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65883,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2