Looking at Stem Cell Research
A broad, popular science look at stem cell research from the John Hopkins Magazine: "Stem cells have been regarded as the best - perhaps the last - hope for patients with certain diseases such as diabetes; if stem cells could be used inside the body to grow the pancreatic islet cells that produce insulin - cells that are ravaged by an immune response in diabetics - then, one day, injecting them into patients might reverse the disorder. The same might be true for Parkinson's disease, which afflicts 2 percent of people over age 65, and thousands of younger people. If stem cell therapies could be developed that would repair or replace damaged or dead dopamine neurons in the brain, sufferers would no longer lose control of their movements. Stem cell research affords scientists the chance to see if they can develop personalized 'drugs' that would work throughout the body, or to uncover the secrets behind the development of human tissues and the origins of disease. No other therapy or group of therapies comes close to its potential impact."