Stem Cell Breakthrough?

My knowledge of these issues is sorely lacking to say the least (which is one reason why I don’t talk much about it), but this seems promising at first glance:

“Researchers in Wisconsin and Japan have turned ordinary human skin cells into what are effectively embryonic stem cells without using embryos or women’s eggs… The unencumbered ability to turn adult cells into embryonic ones capable of morphing into virtually every kind of cell or tissue, described in two scientific journal articles released today, has been the ultimate goal of researchers for years… And until this summer, the challenge of mimicking that process in the lab seemed almost insurmountable, leading many to wonder if stem cell research would ever wrest free of its political baggage.”

The article quotes the USCCB’s Richard Doerflinger, who talks about reactions to the technique at a Vatican-sponsored meeting:

“All the Catholic scientists and ethicists at the conference . . . had no moral problem with it at all… This seems to be a way to get all the same uses that embryonic stem cells and cloning might be put to, without the moral problem.”