It led to a single invention that now allows scientists to grow skin in a device that looks like a purse, and to create whole human organs in the laboratory.
Geron is hoping to use this technology not to copy whole animals, which has proved difficult and inefficient, but instead to create organs and cells for transplant.
He adds that the country faces a severe shortage of organ donors, partly because many people do not want to donate organs due to the cultural belief of that they should be buried whole.