Balzan prize Won By Japanese Stem Cell Researcher

 If adult cells could take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, then the moral issue wouldn't arise. According to the article below, that's what this Japanese researcher has discovered and it won him the Balzan Prize for biology.
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Japanese stem cell researcher wins Balzan prize
COLLEEN BARRY The Associated Press Mon, Sep. 6, 2010

AP | 09/06/2010: "MILAN - A Japanese researcher who found a way to give adults cells certain characteristics of embryonic stem cells, a process scientists say could eventually lead to cures for spinal cord injuries and other ailments, has been awarded the Balzan Prize for biology.

Shinya Yamanaka's prize is one of four , two for sciences, two in humanities , awarded this year by the foundation, with the goal of highlighting new or emerging areas of research and to sustain fields of study that may have been overlooked elsewhere.

Also winning awards were Brazilian mathematician Jacob Palis, who was cited for his contributions to the theory of dynamical systems, which draws from chaos theory and the butterfly effect, or the idea that small differences can create huge changes.

The humanities prizes go to Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, the father of microhistory, the study of the past based on a focus on the small scale, for his contributions to the study of ordinary people in Europe, and to German Manfred Bauneck for his history of the European theater.

Yamanaka has used its finding to treat spinal chord lesions in mice, though the process has not so far been applied in humans, said Nicole Le Douarin, an honorary professor at the College de France who has written a book on stem cells, and who presented the citation.
The process allows adult cells that have already been differentiated into, say, kidney cells or neural cells, be transformed back into cells with the characteristics of embryonic cells , a breakthrough that could provide an alternative to the controversial use of human embryos in stem cell research.

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