Japanese researcher with breakthrough converting skin cells to Pluripotent cells had developed moral qualms about his prior research on embryos.

The NY Times had an article on scientist Shinya Yamanaka.

Shinya Yamanaka - Stem Cells - Science - Risk Taking Is in His Genes - New York Times

Dr. Yamanaka was an assistant professor of pharmacology doing research involving embryonic stem cells when he made the social call to the clinic about eight years ago. At the friend’s invitation, he looked down the microscope at one of the human embryos stored at the clinic. The glimpse changed his scientific career.

“When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters,” said Dr. Yamanaka, 45, a father of two and now a professor at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University. “I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.”

This article was picked up on by Lifenews.com:

Embryonic Stem Cell Alternative Researcher Doesn't Like Destroying Life

The teams released studies in the medical journals Science and Cell that show how they were able to make adult stem cells revert to their embryonic form.

The studies confirm that human skin cells (fibroblasts) can be used to make pluripotent stem cells sharing essentially all the features of human embryonic stem cells.

Pro-life groups have welcomed the findings because they represent another alternative to destroying human life to advance science.

Ultimately, Dr. Yamanaka says he has to have some reliance on embryonic stem cell research to advance his own work, but he hopes alternatives will eventually outpace the use of human embryos.

“There is no way now to get around some use of embryos,” he said. “But my goal is to avoid using them.”