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Engineering Stem Cells More Effectively
(Tuesday September 11 2007)
 | Watch the progress of infrastructure technologies and techniques - it is solid improvement in the foundation that enables stunning advances at the top floor of applied biotechnology. Take this for example, published at Cell Stem Cell: "Reprogramming of somatic cells to the pluripotent stem cell state may allow the development of in vitro models of disease and could provide a mechanism for the generation of patient-specific cells of therapeutic interest. Reprogramming of mouse fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, has been achieved with overexpression of oct4, sox2, klf4, and c-myc and drug selection for the reactivation of a marker of pluripotency ... Here we show that n-myc can substitute for c-myc and that drug selection is dispensable for reprogramming of fibroblasts to pluripotent stem cells. ... Our findings greatly simplify the method for induction of pluripotency and bring it one step closer to clinical applications." Generating pluripotent cells at will cheaply, quickly and reliably is a vital pillar for the ongoing development of regenerative medicine. The easier it becomes, the faster the field will move. |
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