A (new) history of stem cell research
A short time ago, Ed Yong blogged about a timeline he created on reprogrammed stem cells, which we’ve mentioned before in our own blog. It presented a good overview of the major papers that have defined the progress in this specific area and we found it interesting not just because of the method of delivery (a Dipity interface) or the fact that it put stem cells into the spotlight but because it just so happened that we had been working on an updated history of stem cell research.
Those of you who have perused our site will have noticed that we have our own stem cell timeline. The first version of this timeline had been there for at least five years, but in early 2010 it came under some criticism, and rightly so. It was both sparse and biased toward Canadian discoveries (in our defense, the timeline had originally been created to highlight Canadian achievements). But the criticism made us take a second look at it and we learned that it was being referred to and used by a great number of students, not all of whom were in Canada. As a science entity, we needed to do better and so began a much more conscientious effort to really highlight the key discoveries that have defined the field.
Our recently completed timeline features more than 40 major findings, from 1860 to the present day, and highlights the work of researchers from around the world. It’s been reviewed by scientists in the field to be the most comprehensive resource of its type that we know of.
Let us know what you think!
