By Andrew Lyall and Rosario M. Isasi, JD, MPH

Next year, 2011, will mark the 50th anniversary of a series of landmark papers by two Canadian researchers, Dr. James Till and Dr. Ernest McCulloch, who first proved the existence of stem cells and went on to define the core lexicon of stem cell research that is still in use today. These discoveries were recognized with the award of the Lasker Prize in 2005.