Scientists Create Clone From Hair Follicle Stem Cell

Researchers report this week that they have cloned mice using stem cells from the rodents' hair follicle region. "This work opens the door for generating embryonic stem cells (easier than cloning mice) from adult skin stem cells," said Elaine Fuchs, co-senior author of the paper and head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at Rockefeller University in New York City. "If researchers overcome the current technical hurdles of making human embryonic stem cells by nuclear cloning, it may one day be possible to generate tailor-made embryonic stem cells from a patient's skin stem cells," she said.