Dr. Kwang-Soo Kim

Kwang-Soo Kim and colleagues at Harvard Medical School recently reported on their work using a protein bath to induce pluripotent human stem cells.  The proteins were Oct 4, Sox 2, Cdf-3, Nanog, Rex1, hTert, Klf4 and cMyc-all known to induce reprogramming-that had polyarginine tails attached to effect cell penetration.  They then cultured these recombinants in different human cell lines in order to get a sufficient extract of each.  Combining the extracts, Kim bathed human skin cells in this substance, and over eight weeks was able to induce reprogramming to a pluripotent stage.  Not long ago, this idea was almost completely unthinkable. MORE