Stem Cells Generated From Adult Cells

DrJay writes "Scientist report that introducing only four genes to adult cells is sufficient to convert them to something that looks and acts remarkably like an embryonic stem cell. Although some of the details need to be worked out, if this technique is generally applicable, it may allow the production of an essentially unlimited supply of stem cells. There is a subscription-only report, and Ars Technica's science journal describes the results in some detail for those without subscriptions."

Comments

Something that turns you into an embryo

[krell]

Didn't "Star Trek" have an episode about a guy who had this condition?

Of course this only works on mice so far

[the_humeister]

So if you're a mouse, we have so many cures for you. We even have cures for most cancers. Wake me up when scientists figure out how to do this with human cells.

Cool.

[daeg]

This will help kill some of the controversy if it actually works, but many in America still have an irrational fear of sciences that they do not, and can not, understand. People can understand that taking a pill makes you better even if they do not understand the "how" of the pill. They can understand that cutting into your leg to repair a bone with metal rods makes sense. Very few people, however, understand how stem cells may help medical science. Without helping them understand (politicians included), we still have a long way to go before the public openly accepts stem cell research and is comfortable in pumping large amounts of tax money into the research system.

Re:Cool.

[RyanFenton]

Exactly - there were never any scientists with a burning need to tear apart embryos just because they seemed like nice spare parts to use. Embryos have unique properties as far as the way their cells can morph into other cells that just don't occur in adult stem cells. If these same properties can be reproduced otherwise, then embryonic research isn't an issue - but until that happens, banning the study of embryos is an important obstacle to scientific progress.

The irony in all this is that if more embryos that were eventually destroyed without being studied, were instead studied, then these same properties that are important to medical research may have been discovered, allowing us to save more children from more horrible diseases.

To me, the bans that are in place are the equivalent to old laws banning the study of dead bodies, because doing so reduces the sanctity of life.

Ryan Fenton (I am not a lab scientist, just a computer guy who loves following science news)

Human being

[Tracer_Bullet82]

but.. but.. but.. that cell can turn into a living breathing human being.

Re:Human being

[GundamFan]

If that is true... then this is human cloning... and that is even more of a no no.

Storage issue

[Itninja]

But won't the bodies start to stack up fast? I mean, there are only so many hobos that one can kill for their stem cells. They could fit like 1000 embreyos in one Tupperware bowl. Now they will have to have an entire U-Haul truck rented to store all the hobo corpses.

Scientist! Awesome!

[radarsat1]

Wicked, I had no idea Scientist could do this kind of stuff. And he's a great musician.

Strange though that he doesn't mention this kind of research on his myspace page.

Re:Biological scientific breakthroughs

[lazybratsche]

Basically, it's a standard tool in molecular biology. GFP (an acronym for the creatively named Green Flourescent Protein) is a simple protein that's used as an indicator for all sorts of activity. Biologists, for example, will insert the gfp gene into an organism; if the organism glows, then that bit of gene splicing was successful. In other cases, GFP is tied into various genetic regulatory circuits again as a very convenient indicator.

In this case, the researchers added these "induced pluripotent stem cells" (tagged with the GFP gene) to a very early mouse embryo. Since the mouse had green glowing cells throughout its tissues, and the only grene glowing genes were introduced with the induced stem cells, the stem cells were clearly able to differentiate into many kinds of mature cells.

This research is more significant in that it shows the (apparently) minimal set of factors required to make cells revert to pluripotent forms. If only people would shut up about the politics and let scientists do the research...

Too bad I posted, and won't be able to moderate what looks to be a sparkling and witty discussion...