TOP ROW: LUNAR CAUSTIC/FLICKR. MIDDLE ROW, L TO R: TONI BARROS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; RUBENSTEIN/FLICKR; NISSIM BENVENISTY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. BOTTOM ROW, L TO R: JOSEPH ELSBERND/FLICKR; KATHRIN PLATH LAB, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, VIA CIRM
Stem cell research was going strong by the late 1990s. Developmental biologists had been using human embryonal carcinoma (EC) cells at the bench since the mid-1980s, but work on embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and embryonic germ cells in the mouse had given researchers hope that they could derive pluripotent cells from humans that wouldn’t have the EC cells’ abnormal genomes. Leading up to the new millennium, a handful of researchers were working furiously toward this goal.
Restrictions to federal funding for human embryo research in the U.S. severely hindered efforts, but in November 1998, two labs supported by private funding from the Geron Corporation succeeded. James Thomson, a developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and colleagues isolated and cultured stem cells from donated human ...
