The work provides evidence "that ES cell-derived primordial germ cells can generate functional germ cells," says Amander Clark, a stem cell biologist at University of California, Los Angeles, who calls the work "a critical advance to our basic understanding of the principles of germ cell development".
"Blade Runner is the best movie ever made," said Dr Stephen Minger, stem cell biologist at King's College London.
Professor Chris Mason, a stem cell biologist at University College London, said the big challenge for Prof Ali's work would be whether it worked in patients.
Stem cell biologist William Lowry of the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees.
The new facility's director, UCSF stem cell biologist Arnold Kriegstein, calls it "spectacular".
"I was very impressed," says stem cell biologist Nicolas Pineault of Canadian Blood Services in Ottawa.
Tariq Enver, a stem cell biologist at the University of Oxford in the U.K., and his colleagues set out to find these stem cells.
"It's an intriguing new approach," says stem cell biologist and clinician David Scadden of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
"Just billing yourself as a stem cell biologist doesn't mean that someone is really in this field," he says.
