A dramatic breakthough – stem cells from skin cells

Last updated on: November 14, 2014 at 5:55 am by Epiphenom

A dramatic breakthough – stem cells from skin cells 2014-11-14T05:55:08+01:00 Epiphenom

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Teams from Japan and the USA have today simultaneously reported making human embryonic-type stem cells from skin cells, rather than the conventional technique which uses embryonic cells (see refs below). So-called ‘pluripotent’ stem cells are vitally important for research and future medical treatments because of their ability to transform into different tissue types that can be used in any patient – so avoiding the problems of tissue rejection that have plagued attempts to use adult stem cells.

The use of embryonic stem cells has been fiercely resisted by religious groups, despite the fact that they hold out the possibility of saving lives and curing currently untreatable disease. The ability to create pluripotent stem cells from adult tissue, rather than embryos, will not only mean that the supply of pluripotent stem cells becomes potentially unlimited, but will also allow this vital medical research to proceed without religious impediment.

“This is like an earthquake for both the science and politics of stem cell research,” says Jesse Reynolds, policy analyst for the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, California.

Edinburgh team abandons human cloning

The Edinburgh team, lead by Prof Wilmut, who made headlines in 1997 when they made the first ever animal clone (Dolly the Sheep), has announced that they are abandoning attempts the creation of stem cells from human embryos, in favour of the new technique. The BBC reports:

Prof Wilmut said: “We’ve not made this decision because it’s ethically better.

“To me it’s always been ethically acceptable to think that if you could use cells from a human embryo to develop a treatment for a disease like motor neurone disease, for which there is no treatment at present, then that is an acceptable thing to do.”

Refs:

Yu et al. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells. Science 2007;DOI: 10.1126/science.1151526

Takahashi et al. Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors. Cell 2007; DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2007.11.019

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