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• stem cells from human skin
• Posted: 2007-11-22 10:34:50 By dan r
• Dear Friends,
  
  You may have recently read that two research groups have published papers describing a method of creating induced pluripoint stem cells by inserting master regulator genes into the chromosomes of human skin cells. The altered cells appear to behave like embryonic stem cells, in that they might be capable of changing into any one of the 220 types of cells in the human body. This could eventually eliminate the need for using human embryos for research. The results were published in Cell by Shinya Yamanaka (Kyoto University and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco), and in Science by James A. Thomson et al (University of Wisconsin).
  
  At first reading, this sounds promising for the macular degeneration community, but there is a problem.
  
  Four genes were used to reprogram the human skin cells, all of which act to turn other genes on or off, essentially reprogramming the cells into which they are introduced. A current drawback, however, is that one of the genes has a 20 percent risk of causing cancer, which means the stem cells created would not be suitable for replacement in people with degenerative cell diseases such as diabetes and macular degeneration. Unless that problem is resolved, the stem cells would be useful only for study outside of the body. More study is needed, also, to determine if the reprogrammed cells are indeed the same as those from embryos. If that can be confirmed, destruction of embryos and donation of human eggs would no longer be necessary for ongoing stem cell research.
  
  For a summary of the past seven years of stem cell research, see:
  
  http://www.mdsupport.org/library/7years.html
  
  Dan Roberts, Director
  MD Support
  www.mdsupport.org