Source: Associated Press
Posted: June 6, 2007 12:24 p.m. PDT
Summary:
The Associated Press reports on new research coaxing skin cells into cells that function like embryonic stem cells:
"...three teams of researchers said they had found a way to do just that – but in mice. They got ordinary skin cells to act like the embryonic cells." Researchers said their work was not an attempt to evade the ethical objections to embryo destruction. Instead, they said, the goal was to learn how cell reprogramming works. Now scientists have to figure out how to reproduce the success with human cells – no small task – and change the reprogramming procedure to make it safe for use in treatments."
Despite this finding, scientists still emphasized the need to continue embryonic stem cell research, which has stirred ethical controversy:
"In any case, scientists said, the advance does not mean that research that involves getting stem cells from human embryos should now be abandoned. 'We simply don't know which approach ... will work the best,' said researcher Konrad Hochedlinger of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led one of the three teams."
The study appears in the inaugural issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. (The first word in the journal's name refers to its publisher, Cell Press).
The Associated Press also mentions a second study where skin cells were induced to function like embryonic stem cells:
"The other two teams reported their results Wednesday on the Web site of the journal Nature. Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., is the senior author of one paper, and the work behind the other paper was led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan. The new work builds on a landmark paper Yamanaka published last August. He found that by slipping four genes into mouse skin cells called fibroblasts, he could make the altered cells behave much like embryonic stem cells in lab tests."
The story also mentions future obstacles to and potential applications for human stem cell treatment:
"If the technique can be harnessed for people, the iPS cells and the tissue they develop into would provide a genetic match to the person who donated the skin cells. That would make them suitable for transplant to that person, theoretically without fear of rejection."
