Source: Stanford University School of Medicine
Date: May 26, 2011
Summary;
Human skin cells can be converted directly into functional neurons in a period of four to five weeks with the addition of just four proteins, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is significant because it bypasses the need to first create induced pluripotent stem cells, and may make it much easier to generate patient- or disease-specific neurons for study in a laboratory dish.It may also circumvent a recently reported potential problem with iPS cells, in which laboratory mice rejected genetically identical iPS cells — seemingly on the basis of the proteins used to render them pluripotent. The research is published online May 26 in Nature.
Nature and BBC News also posted news stories about this discovery today.
