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A recent meeting titled "Conserved Mechanisms of Stem Cell Control and Regeneration" was held at the Biopharmaceutical Technology Center Institute (BTCI) in Madison, Wisconsin. The diversity of stem cells and biological contexts discussed highlight the field's rapid progress in deciphering the molecular basis of stem cell functions and emphasize the challenges facing the future exploitation of these cells as therapeutic vectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the studies made by Japanese researchers and scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (UW-M) on transforming adult human skin cells into cells that act like embryonic stem cells. The Japanese researchers said that they converted skin cells into cells that can differentiate to form other tissue types. They argue that their induced pluripotent stem cells are almost similar to embryonic stem cells. R. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at UW-M, believes that the studies posed ethical progress in stem cell research.

The article reports on the victory claimed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) in a dispute after a temporary decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to uphold one of its patents. The WARF said the upheld of a 2001 patent method for embryonic stem cells (ESCs) on February 28, 2008. It notes that the patent is one of the three cover methods on work led by researcher James Thomson. Moreover, it informs that critics affirmed the importance of the other two cover methods compared to the ESC patent.

This article reports on research that has identified combinations of 4 genes that can reprogram a human skin cell into an embryonic stem cell-like state. If this approach works, it could advance stem cell research by enabling scientists to make stem cells without the use of a human embryo which is controversial. A research team in Wisconsin and another in Japan coaxed skin cells into a pluripotent state. The Wisconsin team reported that their programmed cells had key characteristics in common with human embryonic stem cells. The Japanese team noted similarities but not key common characteristics.

The article reports on the support given by four prominent stem cell scientists regarding the complaints of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights against the embryonic stem (ES) cell patents being held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The scientists who backed the complaint include Chad Cowan and Douglas Melton of Harvard University, Alan Trounson of Monash University in Australia, and Jeanne Loring of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in San Diego, California. They argue that the patents based on the work of University of Wisconsin researcher John Thompson cannot be patented because he used already-known technology to cultivate ES cells successfully.

The article reports that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) defended its human embryonic stem cell patents in response to a March 2007 ruling by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The Patent Office ruled that research with mouse cells anticipated the 1981 derivation of human cells by University of Wisconsin-Madison scholar James Thomson. WARF defended its derivation of human embryonic stem cells as true scientific discoveries. The Patent Office has two months to decide whether or not the WARF patents are invalid.

The article reports on the move of the Wisconsin government to attract stem-cell science research in the state. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) that holds the U.S. patents on human embryonic stem cell technology, had declared that it will no longer charge licensing fees which usually ranges from $75,000 to $400,000, to companies that sponsor research at universities and other nonprofit organizations. The reason behind it is that WARF had found out that only two companies in the state are doing research at recent times because of high costs brought by the research.

The article reports on the proposed distribution of human embryonic stem cell lines by the science researchers at WiCell Research Institute in Wisconsin. Its initiation depends on the eligibility of funding which is provided by the U.S. government in support for these cell lines. The theory of taking blastomeres from early-developed embryos without harming them is the process involved in the derivation of these lines by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) Inc. According to James Battey of the National Institutes of Health, ACT needed to conclude the impossibility of embryo development in single cells as federal researchers were prohibited from the experimentation of human embryos.

Reports on plans of WiCell Research Institute established at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin to distribute human embryonic stem cells to qualified researchers in academia and industry. Several services offered by the institute; Terms for the use of cell; Price information for cells.

While society debates whether and how to use public funds to support work on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), many scientific groups and businesses debate a different question - the extent to which patents that cover such stem cells should be permitted to limit or to tax their research. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), a non-profit foundation that manages intellectual property generated by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, owns three patents that have been at the heart of the latter controversy The story of WARF's patents and the controversy they have fostered highlights not only continuing tensions between proprietary and nonproprietary approaches to developing science and technology, but also an at least partly reassuring capacity of public and private sectors to deal with those tensions in a way that can render them substantially manageable, and frequently more manageable as a technology matures. More particularly, the cumulative story of WARF's patents features three leitmotifs that suggest how an attentive and engaged public sector might commonly succeed in working with public and private sector actors to achieve workable balances between proprietary rights and more general social interests: (1) right holders' decisions to pursue less than full rights assertion or enforcement; (2) the ability of government and other public sector actors to help bring about such decisions through co-option or pressure; and (3) the frequent availability or development of technological alternatives that limit research bottlenecks.