The European Court of Justice this week issued a ruling prohibiting
patents for stem cell work involving the destruction of human embryos.
The decision is seen as critical setback for stem cell research in
Europe and a blow to the progress of research to find treatments for a
range of diseases. While the ruling allows patents on processes that use
human embryos “for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes that are applied
to the human embryo and are useful to it,” many in the European
scientific community believe it will drive research to other countries.
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