Source: European Science Foundation
Date: October 17, 2007
Summary:
Researchers are discovering new ways to help ‘de-program’ specialised cells so that they can be re-programmed to form a range of different types of tissue, an international meeting of stem cell biologists was told. If this approach can be made to succeed, it could circumvent many of the ethical and moral objections that have been raised to using human stem cells derived from embryos – the ‘blank’ cells (‘toti- or ‘pluripotent’) that have the potential to turn, or differentiate, into multiple types of specialised cell and which could be used to treat many diseases where cells are not functioning correctly.
