I was surprised they approved it. But he said he opposes research using embryonic stem cells or tissue from aborted fetuses. He did not talk about banning such experiments, however. In Canada, it is illegal to clone a human being, but it is not illegal to use fetal tissue or human embryos in research. Federal funding agencies allow experiments on embryos up to 17 days old, but each project must be approved by ethics committees.
Current research is so impressive that political pressure builds to loosen restrictions.
This has huge clinical potential. There are stem cells in every tissue. His colleague Fred Gage, with the Salk Insitute for Biological Studies, pointed out that researchers hope to eventually be able to take specialized stem cells from our bodies, grow them in labs and teach them to become a particular type of cell for transplantation. Another possibility is that scientists will learn, through experimentation, how to activate existing stem cells in our bodies so that they begin replacing or repairing missing areas. Another possibility is that embryonic stem cells, a source of genetic material, can be cloned from our own cells, repaired and transplanted to correct our own genetically transmitted diseases.