An Interview With James Thompson
Some interesting comments in this Forbes interview with stem cell researcher James Thompson: "Most of the hype about embryonic stem cells has been about replacing damaged body parts, but Thomson sees real promise in drug discovery. ... These cells suddenly give us access to all the bits of the human body we've never had access to. That's going to lead to understanding why certain cells are dying, and more traditional therapies are likely to prevent them from dying. Parkinson's, if you can diagnose somebody early in the course of that disease and arrest it, that's as good as a cure. And that I think is fairly probable. ... I'd actually be fairly shocked if 10 or 20 years from now we didn't have such a good understanding of the biology of [Parkinson's] that we didn't have to do transplantation [of new neurons]. And although human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are not the whole story for doing that, I think they're going to be one critical component of it."
Link: http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/05/28/stem-cells-biz-healthcare-cx_mh_0528medtech_thompson.html