The 80s:

Growing a Science

SCIENCE 1980-1981: Developing Culture

Before 1981, most research had been directed towards isolating animal stem cells and developing culture to keep them alive in. Scientists generally agreed on the effectiveness of 3T3 since its invention in 1975. This was composed of mouse fibroblasts, or the embryonic stem cells of mice that would eventually differentiate into the mouse's connective tissue.

SCIENCE 1981: Mouse Stem Cell Lines

In 1981, parallel studies in the United States and Britain finally isolated murine, or mouse, stem cells and formed "lines". Almost simultaneously, Martin Evans and Matthew Kaufman in the UK and Gail Martin in the US isolated these cells, and by doing so isolated animal stem cells for the very first time.

POLITICS: July 28, 1984

Conflict... 

British Parliament was increasingly encountering moral issues regarding embryos and how/when they could ethically be used, both in IVF clinics and in stem cell research. They handed the debate over to what is most commonly known as the Warnock Committee, which reported on this date.  

Compromise...

"No live human embryo derived from in vitro fertilisation, whether frozen or unfrozen, may be kept alive, if not transferred to a woman beyond 14 days after fertilisation, nor may it be used as a research subject beyond 14 days after fertilisation. This 14-day period does not include any time during which the embryo may have been frozen."

-Summarized Statement from the Warnock Committee Report (The British Medical Journal, Volume 289)

SCIENCE: 1987

Australian researchers discover an additional chemical that can be used in culture. Known as LIF, or Leukemia Inhibitory Factor, it could keep mouse stem cells from differentiating for long periods. It also kept them from dividing so crazily that they became cancerous, a serious problem at the time.

SCIENCE: 1988

Researchers developed a way to tell normal blood cells from stem cells in mouse bone marrow. This allowed yet more scientists to isolate the cells and grow them into lines later on!