If cells have all the therapeutic and research potential of embryonic stem cells, i.e. can be coaxed into becoming any type of cell or organ, then they also have the ability to develop into a whole organism. If they don’t have the ability to develop into a whole organism, then they will also lack much of the therapeutic capacity of embryonic stem cells. These researchers are not claiming to have gotten all the way there, but are claiming to have gotten a lot closer than anyone has before, and to have developed techniques which will allow them to fully reprogram cells to an embryonic and still dividing state. Perfecting the techniques to the point where stem cells of true embryonic origin wouldn’t have any significant advantage over the “de-programmed” cells would mean they have ALL the capacities of embryonic cells. If they add some special trick to prevent otherwise fully re-programmed cells from having the ability to become viable embryos, then that will have been a specific intentional act aimed at preventing viability in an embryo that otherwise would be viable — hardly much of a ethical distinction from simply rendering a viable embryo non-viable.
Just as you can pluck a pair of cells off an early stage embryo and have them continue developing and produce a whole organism (which has been done commercially for decades with cattle, and can presumably done with humans too, since splitting embryos is how identical twins arise), cells that have been FULLY reverse engineered to be identical to embryonic cells can do the same thing. Because it hasn’t quite been done yet is hardly evidence that it can’t be. Until this latest development, adult cells “couldn’t” be reprogrammed to this near-embryonic state that has now been achieved.
Egg cells don’t occupy some special category with different rules than other cell types. They spring forth from the same DNA that directs production of all other cell types and of whole organisms. What has already been done in mice is to develop immature egg and sperm cells from embryonic stem cells, with sperm cells capable of fertilizing an egg. In vitro maturation of human egg cells for fertility treatment is on the verge of being applied in clinical practice. Soon the two processes will be combined.
I don’t know why you think I’m portraying this announcement in a negative light. I think it’s great that they’ve done this and hope they can perfect the process quickly so that therapeutic applications using cells genetically matched to patients can be developed as soon as possible. I don’t regard any clump of totipotent or pluripotent cells as a person, so it doesn’t bother me a bit that they will soon be making viable embryos that are genetic matches to patients, and steering those embryos down a different course of development to obtain specific cells or organs needed for treatment.
So what I now understand about your posts is that you are not speaking at all to this most recent discovery, but rather to a potential future discovery??
You refer to the possibility that these cells will be completely reprogrammed in the future so that eggs are no longer used in reproduction. While nothing is out of the realm of possibility, I don’t think we are as close to this possibility as you do. Making babies out of skin cells is still in the realm of science fiction, and I hope that it stays that way.