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Ian Wilmut, famed for creating Dolly the cloned sheep, announced recently that he is abandoning the technique to concentrate on a popular new approach: making induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Such cells would get around the ethical and legal issues surrounding embryonic stem cell work, of which cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, has been an integral part. For the Insights story, "No More Cloning Around," in the August 2008 Scientific American, Sally Lehrman asked Wilmut about his change in focus, whether somatic cell nuclear transfer is still relevant, and what lessons he learned in his experience with Dolly. Here is an edited excerpt of that interview.
You are now director of the Scottish Center for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh, where you oversee 20 principal investigators, including a team that hopes to use iPS cells to observe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in progress and develop treatments. What are some of the questions related to the iPS system that must be worked out?
The limiting factor is not literally getting cell lines anymore; it's going to be studying them. The first...
You are now director of the Scottish Center for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh, where you oversee 20 principal investigators, including a team that hopes to use iPS cells to observe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in progress and develop treatments. What are some of the questions related to the iPS system that must be worked out?
The limiting factor is not literally getting cell lines anymore; it's going to be studying them. The first...
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