How long will it take for human embryonic stem cell research to yield medical treatments?
We can’t say how long it will take to find new treatments for any specific disease using embryonic stem cells. Biomedical research typically has a time frame of 10, 20, even 30 years. Fourteen years elapsed between the first unsuccessful clinical trial of bone marrow transplantation and the first successful transplant among unrelated patients. Now bone marrow transplants are widely touted as the best example of a successful stem cell therapy. Biomedical research takes a long time, but the sooner the research starts, the sooner it will yield new insights and new treatments. If research were stopped by uncertainty, we never would have developed blood transfusions, cardiac bypass surgery, insulin therapy for diabetes, kidney dialysis, antibiotics, organ transplants and many other treatments we now take for granted.
