Incredible development in stem-cell research

[Greebo]

Skin cells CONVERTED to stem cells:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/stemcells/news/2007/11/skin_cell

In an unprecedented feat of biological alchemy, researchers have turned human skin cells into stem cells that hold the same medical promise as the controversial embryonic stem cells.

Scientists believe stem cell research will be able to cure numerous diseases and regenerate failing bodies. The new technique, however, doesn't require the destruction of embryos, or use human eggs or cloning. Thus, it sweeps aside the ethical objections to stem-cell research.

This is freaking incredible!

 

[tonycondon]

that could turn out really really good

 

[ScottM]

Wow! The old saying you wear your heart on your sleeve may become true.

 

[SkyHog]

How many more babies have to die to get new research on stem cells?

Yes I'm being sarcastic. This is great news!

 

[Ken Ibold]

Yippee!! I guess I can stop paying the annual storage bill for my son's frozen stem cells (from placental blood).

 

[steingar]

It worked fairly well for murine (read:mouse) fibroblasts turned into ES cells. That said, it worked fairly well. The new cells (IPs cells, if I remember correctly) could not do all the tricks read ES cells could, but came close.

There is still a bit of work to do to make this a feasible therapeutic avenue, but the proof of principle is absolutely major.

 

[Greebo]

How many more babies have to die to get new research on stem cells?

Yes I'm being sarcastic. This is great news!

I get the sarcasm, but just to be on the record, I put this in Medical Matters because its medical, and I don't want it becoming political...

Not saying you are, just saying in general - lets make sure we do not get into the politics of it please.

 

[ScottM]

How many more babies have to die to get new research on stem cells?

Yes I'm being sarcastic. This is great news!

Now we can just skin 'em!

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

Many congratulations to all the people working towards cracking the total genetic code, it's fascinating.

 

[steingar]

The genetic code is cracked, although its not all its cracked up to be. We now have the code and the sequence of the entire genome (all the human genes, that is). However, we still don't know what they all do. The more we know, the more amazing things we'll be able to do in the future.

 

[ScottM]

..the more amazing things we'll be able to do in the future.

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

The genetic code is cracked, although its not all its cracked up to be. We now have the code and the sequence of the entire genome (all the human genes, that is). However, we still don't know what they all do. The more we know, the more amazing things we'll be able to do in the future.

When we know what they all do, and can manipulate them, then the genetic code will be cracked.

 

[bbchien]

The news isn't that it no longer requires embryonic tissue. The new is that the way this causes de-differentiation provides a means for us to break apart how in the life of a cell, the cell decides to take on its specialized roles.

It will also provide insight into what prevents unlimited cell proliferation.

 

[steingar]

The news isn't that it no longer requires embryonic tissue. The new is that the way this causes de-differentiation provides a means for us to break apart how in the life of a cell, the cell decides to take on its specialized roles.

It will also provide insight into what prevents unlimited cell proliferation.

All true, and quite insightful. We're getting a real look into what causes differentiation and what causes a lack thereof. One of the best things is that we'll finally have a supply of human quasi-ES cells that aren't full of genetic abnormalities. With luck we can being teasing out the mechanisms by which we can differentiate these cells into target cells and tissues. The implications are just enormous. If you have heart problems, your cells can be turned into stem cells, which can then be differentiated into cardiomyocytes and implanted. If you're a diabetic, your cells can be turned into pancreatic beta cells. Moreover, we can use gene targeting to repair the genetic defects that made you a diabetic, so that the cells have a better chance second time around.

 

[Chas]

Yes, it's an interesting finding, getting a lot of publicity. I haven't read either of the papers yet, but I will read them both. From what I hear from an interview with a well-spoken cell biologist from Brown on PBS, in order to confer stem cell-like properties on these skin cells the scientists used a virus as a vector to transformed them with four different genes, one of which was myc (pronounced like the name Mick). It has been known for a long time that myc is an oncogene, i.e. a gene whose over-expression or mutation can lead to a transformed (cancerous) state in a cell. Indeed, a number of human cancers are associated with somatic mutations in myc, or with overexpression of the native (normal) form of the gene. So the concern here is obvious, but still it looks like they have made a significant advance in terms of developing a relatively small set of genetic alterations that confer stem cell-like behavior. Sounds like progress to me.

I'm more of a k-ras and a fos man myself, but myc is good as well.

 

[Chas]

Now we can just skin 'em!

I know you were joking - and it was jolly funny .., but I just thought I'd mention how easy it is to culture adult human dermal fibroblasts, which were the subject of one of the stem cell papers (which I have now read). I used to grow these cells myself many years ago, along with other skin-derived cells. We used to obtain skin samples from patients who had undergone face-lift surgery at a rather classy establishment in New Jersey. It is a simple matter to microdissect these samples and then grow out dermal fibroblasts in a tissue culture dish in an incubator (in the presence of just the right cell culture liquid medium of course). You can subculture ("split") them a few times and so greatly expand their number, although eventually they will cease to proliferate - as one would expect from any normal (non-transformed) cell type.

As Bruce has mentioned, stem cell research such as the recent finding we are discussing, will add to our understanding of the regulation of growth and differentiation of human cells, and hopefully our understanding of the "commitment" of pluripotent stem cells in becoming a particular tissue type - e.g. dermal fibroblast, nephron, neuron, hepatic cell, etc etc. All of these diverse cell types contain the full complement of genetic material of course, it's the manner in which the genes are expressed (and the non-expression of many genes as well) that determines their characteristic form (i.e. their "phenotype").