WASHINGTON, April 30: Scientists said on Tuesday they had transformed ordinary human skin cells into immune cells in an experiment that, if it can be repeated, might do away with the need for either stem cells or cloning for many medical therapies.

The team at biotech start-up Nucleotech LLC hope to be able to offer patients grow-your-own transplants that could theoretically be used to treat diseases such as immune deficiencies and juvenile diabetes.

Many teams are working on the idea, but nearly all had assumed the need for stem cells, the body’s master cells, which are elusive and difficult to grow in the lab. They can be found in blood and tissue, or can be taken from embryos — usually obtained from fertility clinics.

Such stem cells could also theoretically be made using cloning technology — something highly controversial and the subject of competing legislation in the U.S. Congress. President George W. Bush supports a complete ban on the use of cloning technology involving humans.

But James Robl, Philippe Collas and colleagues at Nucleotech and the University of Oslo believe they have found a way around the controversy.

By punching holes in mature skin cells and soaking them in a solution made from immune system cells, they said they turned them into what look like T-cells — key immune system cells.

“They start acting like T-cells,” Collas told Reuters. “That’s the beauty of our system — we are not working with embryos or dealing with stem cells at all. You get around all these issues.”—Reuters