(Vatican Radio) The European Bishops Conference or (COMECE) and a number of institutes
that engage with the moral questions arising in clinical practice and biomedical research
have welcomed the awarding of Nobel Medicine Prize to two scientists for their work
on stem cells. John B Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan shared
the prize for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like
stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.
Josephine
Quintavalle, Director of the UK based group “Comment on Reproductive Ethics” says
Yamanaka, in particular, has a deep understanding of the dignity of the human embryo.
“He
moved us all with that very simple understanding of the embryo and its humanness,
humanity and its value”.
She also told Lydia O’Kane that, “His concept of the
embryo became very quickly our concept of the embryo, the scientific reality that
an embryo is the beginning of human life” Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s interview with
Josephine Quintavalle