Time Magazine including a front cover relating to stem cell therapy

Edition of Time Magazine, 9 February 2009, with front cover story relating to stem cell therapy by Alice Park

Stem cells were first identified in 1963, by Canadian researchers Ernest McCulloch and James Till. In 1998 James Thomson’s isolated the first human embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can only develop into specific cells e.g. from the bone marrow into blood cells and cells of the immune system. Embryonic stem cells can develop into any type of cell.

The cover story relates to a story inside the issue of the work of Douglas Melton who pivoted his research from in amphibian development to working on stem cells in a bid to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, following his son’s diagnosis. This issue is also significant as it was published just a few weeks before President Obama lifted the restraints on embryonic-stem-cell research that had barred the National Institutes of Health from funding projects beyond using the 60 extant cell lines—only 21 of which were viable.