Her enthusiasm for the promise of adult stem cell therapies and induced pluripotent stem cells (adult cells that have been reprogrammed into stem cells) was evident.

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Induced pluripotent stem cells can come from any cell in the human body, including skin cells, so they don't have the moral quandaries surrounding them.

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Defenders of embryonic stem cell work say that it is important even in understand adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, which resemble the embryonic cells but can be created without destroying embryos.

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While cloning stem cells is a technical breakthrough, there's already a method of deriving embryonic-like stem cells that doesn't require the use of embryos at all: induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, said Dr. George Daley, who is director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston and an international expert in stem cells.

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Since that time, more advanced cloning technologies have evolved, including the iPS system of induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be grown from nearly any skin cell.

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