Could adult stem cells be used in place of embryonic stem cells?
I would most certainly hope so. The thought of using embryos for that just makes me nauseous. Personally I'd rather die than have that treatment. Adult stem cells would be perfect if it works.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/08/us-nobel-medicine-idUSBRE8970AB20121008
UK, Japan scientists win Nobel for adult stem cell discovery
(Reuters) - Scientists from Britain and Japan shared a Nobel Prize on Monday for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.
John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to collect the cells from embryos.
They share the $1.2 million Nobel Prize for Medicine, for work Gurdon began 50 years ago and Yamanaka capped with a 2006 experiment that transformed the field of "regenerative medicine" - the search for ways to cure disease by growing healthy tissue.