“a way to transform human stem cells — both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells”
“embyronic”?
What is the source of these “embryonic” cells?
Fertilized eggs from the usual, objectionable suspects, IMHO. But there's a problem with induced pluripotent stem cells because they have seen the effects of epigenetic imprinting upon them since they were originally adult somatic cells before they were induced pluripotent stem cells.
Even though there is an obvious potential for immunological differences between induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells, because of these epigenetic changes embryonic stem cells have been proposed as the reference or control group in regenerative medicine experiments with induced pluripotent stem cells, IIRC.
It's not that I approve of this methodology. Could they use chimp embryonic stem cells instead? I don't know. This is the path they have chosen for a control group. I'm not doing the experiments. I just posted a press release.
If they acquire useful medical knowledge about human induced pluripotent stem cells is another question. What if you had a patient or a family member that could benefit from this knowledge that human induced pluripotent stem cells have been validated for the purpose of therapeutic regenerative medicine? Folks without these ethical qualms are doing these experiments. Should their results be ignored?