Why have no treatments or cures resulted from embryonic stem cell research?
The first isolation of human embryonic stem cells was documented in 1998 by Dr. James Thomson. Federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells began in 2001 and was until recently limited to a small number of stem cell lines that many scientists deemed not suitable for research. A new treatment or cure typically takes many years to develop because scientists and doctors must ensure that it works and is safe. Adult stem cells from bone marrow are a great example of the long and arduous process of developing a new treatment or cure. Bone marrow was first identified as a possible treatment for leukemia in the early twentieth century, and the first bone marrow transplants were attempted in the late 1950s. At first, the only successful transplants were between identical twins. It took scientists a decade to discover how to perform transplants between siblings who were not identical twins, and it was not until 1973 that bone marrow from an unrelated donor was used successfully for a tra
