UW researcher reflects on stem cell breakthrough 20 years ago

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Few people will have the same high-profile chance to influence the world as directly as University of Wisconsin’s James Thomson. Most people will never see their names printed in textbooks or see their work have an influence on politics.

This was the case for Thomson, who made news around the world in Nov. 1998 when he and his team became the first to derive human stem cells from an embryo. Thomson said that he didn’t have time to revel in his accomplishment.

“You’re just so concentrated on getting things out and all the stress involved in that and knowing the press storm that was going to follow it,” Thomson said. “You’re more concentrated in the moment. Afterwards it’s pretty satisfying, but during the actual [process], not as much.”

Thomson is just as muted when he talks about the state of stem cell research 20 years after his breakthrough. Several human clinical trials with stem cells have begun or have very nearly begun, but Thomson said that it’s not surprising that stem cell treatment has not progressed beyond this point.

Given how novel stem cell treatments are, 20 years seems like a reasonable time frame, Thomson said.

“The press overhyped the timeline,” Thomson said. “Everybody thought this would lead to cures tomorrow, but that’s not how cures work.”

Dennis Clegg, a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, is among those who have begun human clinical trials using stem cells. Clegg is working to create a treatment for Age-Related Macular Degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among people over age 50.

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News Date: 

Tuesday, October 30, 2018