The best solution to any problem is that one that satisfactorily answers everyone's concerns. Stem cell research is currently posing an ethical dilemma for the scientific community -- who realize that advances in stem cell therapy might one day bring the cure for many diseases, including cancer and diabetes. Because of the ethical challenges this type of research presents, rigorous standards have been put into place in order that stem cell research be allowed to continue. Stem cell research is simply to promising to be abandoned. In spite of this, there are opponents who remain uncomfortable with stem cell research.

Institute for Stem Cell Research at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom may have opened the door to a win-win situation for all sides of the stem cell research debate, as they have discovered Nanog, a molecule with the extraordinary ability that allows them to reprogram an adult cell and turn it into a embryonic stem cell. At this point, it is just a door opening, and the researchers caution there is more research to be done. But this is a significant breakthrough and the race to perfect this process will heat up in the scientific community. The profound potential cures for diseases using embryonic stem cells is the hope and promise of a future not yet real, but very much imagined. The imagination will lead us to the reality.