![]() "This study would not have been possible without the significant international collaboration between BWH and the RIKEN Center," he added. This finding has the potential to reduce the need to utilize both embryonic stem cells and DNA-manipulated iPS cells," said senior author Charles Vacanti, MD, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Director of the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at BWH, an HSCI Affiliated Faculty member, and senior author of the study. The fate of adult cells can be drastically converted by exposing mature cells to an external stress or injury. Our research findings demonstrate that creation of an autologous pluripotent stem cell-a stem cell from an individual that has the potential to be used for a therapeutic purpose-without an embryo, is possible. "It may not be necessary to create an embryo to acquire embryonic stem cells. Importantly, this process does not require the introduction of new outside DNA, the process commonly used to induce adult cells back into a state of pluripotentency. Published in the Januissue of Nature, researchers demonstrate in a preclinical model, a novel and unique way that cells can be reprogrammed, a phenomenon they call stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP). Now, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in collaboration with the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan, have demonstrated that any mature adult cell (a "somatic" cell) has the potential to turn into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell. To avoid the use of embryonic stem cells, other researchers have focused more on the use of adult stem cells, but the use is of these cells is limited because unlike embryonic stem cells that grow into any type of mature cell, adult stem cells can only grow into certain cell types. They provided evidence that it was possible to send a normal adult cell back to an undifferentiated, pluripotent stem cell state by introducing genetic material ("outside" DNA) into the cell, a process that alters the original state of the cell. In 2006, researchers introduced an alternative to harvesting embryonic stem cells called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. However, the acquisition of human embryonic stem cells from an embryo can cause the destruction of the embryo, thus raising ethical concerns. Since the discovery of human embryonic stem cells, scientists have had high hopes for their use in treating a wider variety of diseases because they are pluripotent, which means they are capable of differentiating into one of many cell types in the body.
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