Reprogrammed cells open new medical window

This undated handout photo shows iPS cells derived from adult human dermal fibroblasts released by Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka at Center for iPS Cell Research and Application of Kyoto University in Kyoto, western Japan. Briton John Gurdon and Japan's Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize for Medicine on October 8, 2012 for work on creating stem cells, opening the door to new methods to diagnose and treat diseases. Mandatory Credit REUTERS/Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University/Handout

(Reuters) – The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of how to reprogram ordinary cells to behave like embryonic stem cellsoffers a way to skirt around ethical problems with human embryos, but safety concerns make their future use in treating diseaseuncertain.

While researchers have already applied the scientific breakthroughs of Britain’s John Gurdon and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka to study how diseases develop, making such cells into new treatments will involve a lot more checks.

Stem cells act as the body’s master cells, providing the source material for all other cells. They could transform medicine by regenerating tissue for diseases ranging from blindness to Parkinson’s disease.

Creating embryo-like stem cells without destroying embryos gets round a key controversy by avoiding the need to process embryos left over at fertility clinics – a system that has led to political objections in the United States and elsewhere.

Reprogrammed cells – known as induced pluripotent stem cells, oriPS cells – offer an ethically neutral alternative. They have been a source of intense research since Yamanaka discovered their potential in 2006, building on work that Gurdon did in frogs and tadpoles 40 years earlier.

 

Yahoo News has the full article

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