
Tuesday's announcement that scientists had found a noncontroversial way to make cells equivalent to human embryonic stem cells did not just change the scientific and ethical landscape. It generated economic and geopolitical tremors through California, New York and about half a dozen other states that have invested -- in some cases heavily -- in embryonic stem cell programs and research centers.
The possibility that embryonic stem cells will be eclipsed by "ips" cells -- or "induced pluripotent stem cells," "pluripotent" meaning "able to become virtually every kind of" -- which can be created with relative ease and with abundant funding from the National Institutes of Health, could undermine those state-level ambitions and bring an early end to a novel experiment in scientific federalism, experts said.
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