Pluripotent Stem Cell

Much of the thinking about stem cells has focused on regenerative medicine, but they may be more fundamentally important in unraveling molecular mysteries of diseases.  Somatic cells, taken from a Parkinson’s sufferer, can be induced to act as pluripotent stem cells, while retaining the molecular characteristics of the patient’s disease state.  Ironically, the Bush Administration’s ban on embryonic stem cell research pushed development of iPS (induced pluripotent stem cells), though the originating technology has only existed for two or three years.  At present, research groups around the world on working on iPS models for diseases-at Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute, for example, researchers already have developed more than 20 disease-specific iPS lines.     MORE

Image Credit: Junying Yu/University of Wisconsin-Madison and Technology Review