Word: melton
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...suddenly a reality. Never mind the frustratingly fickle process needed to create embryonic stem cells; this was something any molecular-biology graduate student could do. "We figured somebody would have success with reprogramming. We just thought that somebody would come along a generation from now," says Dr. David Scadden, Melton's co-director at HSCI. "Yamanaka threw a grenade at all of that, and now all of the doors are open...
Beyond Stem Cells Melton, for one, isn't wasting any time before running through those doors. The iPS technology is the ultimate manufacturing process for cells; it is now possible for researchers to churn out unlimited quantities of a patient's stem cells, which can then be turned into any of the cells that the body might need to repair or replace...
Before that can happen, however, Melton wants to learn more about how diseases develop. And iPS cells make that possible too. For the very first time, he can watch Type 1 diabetes unfold in a petri dish as a patient's cells develop from their embryonic state into mature pancreatic cells. The same will be true for other diseases as well. "There is a good reason we don't have treatments for diseases like Parkinson's," says Melton. "That's because the only way science can study them is to wait until a patient appears in the office with symptoms...
...true power of reprogramming, however, does not stop with the stem cell. This summer, Melton flirted with the rules of biology once again when he generated another batch of history-making cells, switching one type of adult pancreatic cell, which does not produce insulin, to a type that does - without using stem cells at all. Why, he thought, do we need to erase a mature cell's entire genetic memory? If it's possible to reprogram cells back to the embryo, wouldn't it be more efficient in some cases to go back only part of the way and simply...
...cells have yet to prove that they are a safe and suitable substitute for the diseased cells they might eventually replace in a patient. Ensuring their safety would require doing away with dangerous genes that can also cause cancer, as well as the retroviral carriers that Yamanaka originally used. Melton's team has already replaced two of the genes with chemicals, and he anticipates that the remaining ones will be swapped out in a few years. There are also hints that the iPS cells' short-circuited development makes them different in some ways from their embryonic counterparts. In mice, embryonic...