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According to a report in the Monday, January 15 2001, London Times, immunologist Dr. Ilham Abuljadayel, now working in a laboratory in the department of physiology in Cambridge, claims to have developed a method to create stem cells from adult white blood cells, thereby reversing the process by which immature stem cells differentiate to become mature adult cells. See http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-68170,00.html. The process has been replicated by Professor Adrian Newland of the Royal London Hospital Medical School and by the contract research company Covance, and a company has been set up to market the idea. The first application to be developed based on this process will be a treatment for leukemia. The article seems to imply, but does not state specifically, that the stem cells created by the process are equivalent to the pluripotent stem cells which are found in the early stage embryo (blastocyst) and which may differentiate into most cells in the body. I am wondering whether the stem cells that were created are instead equivalent to the multipotent blood stem cells which differentiate into red and white blood cells. Phil Tompkins