Source: Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Date: August 27, 2007
Summary:
Some scientific results are hard to spot, especially in genetic research. Often scientists are unable to physically see if the gene they inserted into a cell has produced the desired trait. To overcome this problem researchers use various genetic markers that contain pieces of foreign DNA that cause cells to, for example, glow when exposed to ultraviolet light.
But scientists in the lab of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch didn’t have to resort to these genetic markers in their latest experiment because the results were easy to see. Building on their widely publicized June Nature paper, which demonstrated that it’s possible to convert specialized mouse skin cells into unspecialized stem cells, Whitehead postdoctoral researchers Alexander Meissner and Marius Wernig have now identified successfully reprogrammed cells by looks alone.
Their findings, which appear online in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Aug. 27, bring human stem cell therapies a step closer to reality. Before reprogramming can be applied to our own species to generate custom embryonic stem cells, scientists must be able to accomplish it without altering the DNA of the cells involved.
