Blatant Reality

A recent discovery could lead towards scientists being able to reprogram adult stem cells to act like embryonic stem cells.

In a paper released online today by the journal Cell Stem Cell, Konrad Hochedlinger and colleagues report that they have discovered how long adult cells need to be exposed to reprogramming factors before they convert to an embryonic-like state, and have “defined the sequence of events that occur during reprogramming.”

 

This work on adult mouse skin cells should help researchers narrow the field of candidate chemicals and proteins that might be used to safely turn these processes on and off. This is particularly important because at this stage in the study of these induced pluripotent (iPS) cells, researchers are using cancer-causing genes to initiate the process, and are using retroviruses, which can activate cancer genes, to insert the genes into the target cells. As long as the work involves the use of either oncogenes or retroviruses, it would not be possible to use these converted cells in patients.

 

Up to this point, the reprogramming process has been a virtual black box - scientists have been able to turn back the developmental clock on adult skin cells by introducing four genes into the cells, but they have not known what steps were occurring during the process.

 

Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director Doug Melton called the work “an impressive and thoughtful study” that “marks an important first step in finding ways to create pluripotent stem cells from adult cells without the need for viruses or oncogenes.”

Once again, here is some research that both sides of the stem cell issue can appreciate which eliminates any ethical problems.