Source: Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
Date: October 18, 2010
Summary:
A team of scientists from Singapore led by the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), two biomedical research institutes of Singapore’s Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), have discovered the most important genes in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), a crucial breakthrough in discovering how human stem cells work. Their research, published in top scientific journal Nature, is the first ever genome-wide study of human stem cells on such a massive scale, and its results are crucial in understanding how stem cells may one day be used to treat debilitating conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and traumatic spinal injury. In addition, the scientists found that PRDM14 played a key role in hESCs, but not in mouse ESCs. This significant new finding highlights the fundamental differences between stem cells from different species, and highlights the greater need to use human cells in stem cell research.
