Stem cells—the precious and finicky immature cells that can grow into specialized cells or renew themselves—are finally being harnessed. After years of research into how organisms develop from a fertilized egg into an adult and how the earliest cells differentiate, a few teams of scientists are finding ways to make stem cells do their bidding, at least in mice and other animals. continued...

Photo: Jessell Lab

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
December 2002, pages 22-17.
©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute