Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center have finally succeeded in creating human stem cells by taking genetic material from an adult cell and putting it into an egg whose DNA had been taken away, according to Reuters. This is the same method used to create Dolly the cloned sheep 17 years ago.

This creates a bunch of human embryonic stem cells, the same cells that can change into any of the more than 200 cells that construct a human being.

This could once again start research concerning stem cell medicine which had been halted by technical difficulties and arguments over the ethics concerning the research.

Until the group from Oregon, who used unfertilized human eggs in its research, accomplished this new feat, the most natural way to get human stem cells was to take them from human embryos—which caused the ethical dilemmas.

Since human embryos are no longer a need in the research, more scientists may participate and possibly produce healthy cells that could help people with damaged cells from diseases like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

However, there are still some who opposed the research. The accomplishment could reignite fears of cloning living, or dead, people.

A British watchdog group, Human Genetics Alert, has some of those fears.

"Scientists have finally delivered the baby that would-be human cloners have been waiting for: a method for reliably creating cloned human embryos," said the group’s director Dr. David King. "This makes it imperative that we create an international legal ban on human cloning before any more research like this takes place. It is irresponsible in the extreme to have published this research."

However, many scientists feel this is a great feat.

"This represents an unparalleled achievement. They succeeded where many other groups failed, including mine,” said biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

In 1998 Jamie Thomson at the University of Wisconsin and her team of scientists announced their own stem cell research using days-old human embryos. However, this became an issue with those who believe life begins at conception. So, in 2001 President George Bush stopped federal funding for research that would use the embryos, also known as blastocysts.

The Oregon scientists, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, put an adult cell into a human egg that had been donated and had its DNA removed.

Stimulated by electric pulses, the unfertilized egg transformed to approximately the 150-cell stage.

All of the cells were embryonic stem cells and had the “ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," said Mitalipov. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Scientists now wait to see if the “Dolly” method is more effective than the induced pluripotent cell method created by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in 2007. Yamanaka was able to forego the use of eggs and embryos by inserting four genes into an adult egg. The results showed all the properties of embryonic stem cells. For his research Yamanaka shared last year’s Nobel Prize.

Currently, the Dolly method works faster than the iPS method. However, getting the human eggs for the Dolly method provide a greater challenge since the materials needed are not in abundance.

If the Dolly method does turn out to be reliable, it could expedite clinical trials and prove helpful in the future.