LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers said on Sunday they had found a safer way to transform ordinary skin cells into powerful stem cells in a move that could eventually remove the need to use human embryos.

It is the first time that scientists have turned skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells -- which look and act like embryonic stem cells -- without having to use viruses in the process.

The new method also allows for genes that are inserted to trigger cell reprogramming to be removed afterwards.

»www.reuters.com/article/scienceN···20090301