By Shobana Kesava

SINGAPORE-based scientists said the breakthrough in Spain is promising, though the patient may need checks for years, before she can be given a clean bill of health.

While cautioning that this could be a one-off success, stem cell researchers here hailed it as proving that laboratory methods being tested around the world could work in real life.

'It shows these strategies of scientific approaches can be combined into clinically relevant interventions,' said Dr Gerald Udolph, who heads the developmental neurobiology laboratory at the Institute of Medical Biology under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).

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