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stem cells----------------------------art

embryonic stem cell colonies from the lab of developmental biologist James Thompson
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Used with permission © University of Wisconsin Board of Regents

Robert Lanza, Vice President, ACT-------------Richard M. Doerflinger, Deputy Director, USCCB

Robert Lanza, M.D., is the Vice President of Medical & Scientific Development at Advanced Cell Technology, a bio-tech firm formerly based in Worchester, Massachusetts, and presently headquartered in Alameda, California, where it moved to take advantage of the $3 billion in funding provided by California Proposition 71, which researches ways to create therapies for various diseases using embryonic stem cells.

Richard M. Doerflinger is the Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, a department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Dr. Lanza and Mr. Doerflinger appeared together as guests on Thursday, August 24, 2006, on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to talk about Dr. Lanza's recent announcement that he and his company, Advanced Cell Technology, were claiming that they had found a way to circumvent ethical objections to the creation of embryonic stem cells from embryos by removing one cell from 8-celled embryos and deriving human embryonic stem cells from that single cell.

As a reading of the segment transcript or a viewing of the segment video shows, the questions involved are pretty complicated, both scientifically and ethically.