Browsing Penn’s Cyber Stacks

Scattered collections, brittle diaries, rare artifacts, handwritten plays, and more are flashing across computer screens worldwide, via the University's groundbreaking digital library project.

James Thomson and the Holy Grail

In 1998, graduate alumnus Dr. James Thomson won the race to isolate and culture human stem-cells for a sustained period—one of the holy grails of medical science—but he can’t outrun the controversy generated by his work. Increasingly, he isn’t trying.