Hooray Stem Cells!

We've known about it for more than a year. After all, it took that long just to get through peer review. But now that it's in the local papers and on NPR, I bet the Murry lab gets a little taste of sciencelebrity. Carol Ostrom of the Seattle Times wrote an accurate account of the Laflamme et al paper to be published in September's issue of Nature Biotechnology, but livened up the story with some juicy tidbits. Here are some of my favorite lines from the Seattle Times article: referring to attempts to get cells to survive after injection,

Finally, they hit on a "pro-survival cocktail" of chemicals plus applying heat to the cells to make them behave.

By the way, this is the area of the report most connected with my research: I make cells behave. I also appreciated,

"We're pleased to be able to provide an example of something that can be done with embryonic cells that can't be done with adult stem cells," Murry said.

For those of you outside of the cell transplantation for cardiac repair field, that's a little barb at a competing group whose leader's name rhymes with 'prepare to reverse ya.' Finally, there is the obligate:

To make the breakthrough, Chuck Murry and his colleagues used the so-called "presidential lines" of stem cells. Those cells are generated from a group of embryos that had already been destroyed before the Bush administration limited research on embryonic stem cells... Murry hopes someday to work with newer lines that would be more suitable for human transplantation.

So you can be a scientist and an advocate for science at the same time! So Chuck... you'll probably be too busy today with interviews and such to read my dissertation draft, huh?

Special props to Justin Reedy who authored the press release on this story, an adaption of which can be read in full on ScienceDaily.

Update 9AM August 27: It's a good thing I saved this screenshot for posterity... Alberto Gonzales' resignation is hogging all the headlines!!!