Milestones of Stem Cell Research

(from Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia)
1960s - Joseph Altman and Gopal Das present scientific evidence of adult neurogenesis, ongoing stem cell activity in the brain; their reports contradict Cajal's "no new neurons" dogma and are largely ignored.
1963 - McCulloch and Till illustrate the presence of self-renewing cells in mouse bone marrow.
1968 - Bone marrow transplant between two siblings successfully treats SCID.
1978 - Haematopoietic stem cells are discovered in human cord blood.
1981 - Mouse embryonic stem cells are derived from the inner cell mass by scientists Martin Evans, Matthew Kaufman, and Gail R. Martin. Gail Martin is attributed for coining the term "Embryonic Stem Cell".
1992 - Neural stem cells are cultured in vitro as neurospheres.
1997 - Leukemia is shown to originate from a haematopoietic stem cell, the first direct evidence for cancer stem cells.
1998 - James Thomson and coworkers derive the first human embryonic stem cell line at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2000s - Several reports of adult stem cell plasticity are published.
2001 - Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology clone first early (four- to six-cell stage) human embryos for the purpose of generating embryonic stem cells.[30]
2003 - Dr. Songtao Shi of NIH discovers new source of adult stem cells in children's primary teeth.[31]
2004-2005 - Korean researcher Hwang Woo-Suk claims to have created several human embryonic stem cell lines from unfertilised human oocytes. The lines were later shown to be fabricated.
2005 - Researchers at Kingston University in England claim to have discovered a third category of stem cell, dubbed cord-blood-derived embryonic-like stem cells (CBEs), derived from umbilical cord blood. The group claims these cells are able to differentiate into more types of tissue than adult stem cells.
August 2006 - Rat Induced pluripotent stem cells: the journal Cell publishes Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka, "Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Mouse Embryonic and Adult Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors".
October 2006 - Scientists in England create the first ever artificial liver cells using umbilical cord blood stem cells.[32][33]
January 2007 - Scientists at Wake Forest University led by Dr. Anthony Atala and Harvard University report discovery of a new type of stem cell in amniotic fluid.[5] This may potentially provide an alternative to embryonic stem cells for use in research and therapy.[34]
June 2007 - Research reported by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice.[35] In the same month, scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov reports the first successful creation of a primate stem cell line through somatic cell nuclear transfer[36]
October 2007 - Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies win the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their work on embryonic stem cells from mice using gene targeting strategies producing genetically engineered mice (known as knockout mice) for gene research.[37]
November 2007 - Human Induced pluripotent stem cells: Two similar papers released by their respective journals prior to formal publication: in Cell by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka, "Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors", and in Science by Junying Yu, et al., from the research group of James Thomson, "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells": pluripotent stem cells generated from mature human fibroblasts. It is possible now to produce a stem cell from almost any other human cell instead of using embryos as needed previously, albeit the risk of tumorigenesis due to c-myc and retroviral gene transfer remains to be determined.
January 2008 - Human embryonic stem cell lines were generated without destruction of the embryo[38]
January 2008 - Development of human cloned blastocysts following somatic cell nuclear transfer with adult fibroblasts[39]

Stem cell funding & policy debate in the US

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1995 - U.S. President Bill Clinton signs into law the Dickey Amendment which prohibited federally appropriated funds to be used for research where human embryos would be either created or destroyed.
02 November, 2004 - California voters approve Proposition 71, which provides $3 billion in state funds over ten years to human embryonic stem cell research.
2001-2006 - U.S. President George W. Bush endorses the Congress in providing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research of approximately $100 million as well as $250 million for research on adult and animal stem cells. He also enacts laws that restrict federally-funded stem cell research on embryonic stem cells to the already derived cell lines.
5 May, 2006 - Senator Rick Santorum introduces bill number S. 2754, or the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, into the U.S. Senate.
18 July, 2006 - The U.S. Senate passes the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act H.R. 810 and votes down Senator Santorum's S. 2754.
19 July, 2006 - President George W. Bush vetoes H.R. 810 (Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act), a bill that would have reversed the Clinton-era law which made it illegal for federal money to be used for research where stem cells are derived from the destruction of an embryo.
07 November, 2006 - The people of the U.S. state of Missouri passed Amendment 2, which allows usage of any stem cell research and therapy allowed under federal law, but prohibits human reproductive cloning.[40]
16 February, 2007 – The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine became the biggest financial backer of human embryonic stem cell research in the United States when they awarded nearly $45 million in research grants.[41]

See also
The American Society for Cell Biology
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Genetics Policy Institute
Cancer stem cells
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPS Cell)