Researchers from Valencia are able to create stem cells without damaging the embryo

The Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe (CIPF) of Valencia, Spain, has created a new line of stem cells, obtained at the National Bank of Cellular Lines, without destroying the embryo from which they proceed. The Valencian Ministry of Health guarantees that this new line of stem cells is the first derived in Europe with a new technology that allows the viability of the embryo to be maintained. The health institute Carlos III authorized Carlos Simón, responsible for Cellular Lines of CIPF, to continue with this project in January 2008. This technique produces lines of stem cells from a blastomere (each one of the cells into which the zygote divides), thus maintaining the viability of the embryo from which it proceeds. The peculiarity of these cells is that besides being useful for research in regenerative medicine, they can create potential immunological therapies and are genetically compatible with the child who will be born. Simón explained that this discovery would allow that child to have “a type of insurance that will allow him to have all of his cells prepared in case he would need them in the future.” Thus, banks of this material could be created, just as they exist for umbilical cord blood today. “The cell is extracted when the embryo is two or three days old, when it’s in the phase of six to eight cells, ” explained Simon. In this way, the embryo can continue to live because this is what’s usually done to diagnose monogenic illnesses in embryos.