Word: skins
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...work, published in the journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell, represent true milestones, not only in the field of stem-cell research, but in the broader discipline of early biological development. Led by Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, one group successfully coaxed a mouse skin cell to reverse its development and return to an embryonic stage at which it produced stem cells. Two other groups, based at Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, obtained similar results working independently. In the final paper, Kevin Eggan, also at HSCI, showed that even fertilized mouse...
...indeed possible to take a skin cell from an adult patient and tweak it to revert to an embryonic-type cell, that would mean that any patient needing a stem-cell-based treatment could, in theory, heal himself. Last year, Yamanaka was the first to announce success with this approach, by exposing the cells to four growth factors and nutrients. But the stem cells he generated were genetically abnormal and unstable. Building on the initial technique, Yamanaka's group, as well as those led by Rudolph Jaenisch at Whitehead and Konrad Hochedlinger at HSCI, showed that the process does indeed...
...immediate obstacle to translating the results to human cells involves the way that the scientists turned back time on the mouse skin cells. They used a retrovirus vector, piggybacking the genes for the growth factors and proteins onto this infectious ferry. Retroviruses, however, like HIV, can cause infectious diseases and are not always easy to control, so before testing this approach in humans, researchers need to find other modes of transport for the critical compounds. The good news is that they need the genes to churn out their proteins for a only brief period of time, so using less virulent...
...Eggan's group has provided an alternative method for generating customized stem cells that would take advantage of the early-stage embryos frozen in IVF centers around the country. The most reliable way of generating patient-specific stem cells remains nuclear transfer-taking the nucleus from a patient's skin cell and inserting it into an egg that has had its nucleus removed. This hybrid then begins to divide, and within a few days, generates stem cells that are genetically identical to the patient. The problem, however, as Eggan puts it, is that "there are never any extra unfertilized eggs...
...triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skin. Is such a hope justified? Do the Sorrow Songs sing true...