Lead Into Gold: IPSC Researchers Create Disease-Specific Cells for Study
Breakthroughs continue to be made in the IPSC arena. One of the primary purposes for therapeutic cloning was supposed to be the ability to create pluripotent embryonic stem cell lines for study from patients with specific diseases. No cloned embryonic stem cells yet at all, but the IPSC lines are being made for just that purpose. From the story in Cell:Tissue culture of immortal cell strains from diseased patients is an invaluable resource for medical research but is largely limited to tumor cell lines or transformed derivatives of native tissues. Here we describe the generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from patients with a variety of genetic diseases with either Mendelian or complex inheritance; these diseases include adenosine deaminase deficiency-related severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA-SCID), Shwachman-Bodian-Diamond syndrome (SBDS), Gaucher disease (GD) type III, Duchenne (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD), Parkinson disease (PD), Huntington disease (HD), juvenile-onset, type 1 diabetes mellitus (JDM), Down syndrome (DS)/trisomy 21, and the carrier state of Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Such disease-specific stem cells offer an unprecedented opportunity to recapitulate both normal and pathologic human tissue formation in vitro, thereby enabling disease investigation and drug development.
HT: Don Nelson
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 4:27 AM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
This is of course a terrific advance, but you consistently portray IPSC as a replacement for embryonic stem cells, when in reality all IPSC progress comes as a result of embryonic stem cell research. One citation for this is http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/120928.php, although you can find your own throughout the medical media.
If IPSC's in and of themselves were an improvement over embryonic stem cells, I can assure you that the embryonic researchers would drop that line like the hot potato it is. I should also remind you that the key research that led to skin cells being "reprogrammed" was accomplished by embryonic stem cell pioneer James Thomson (with Sinya Yamanaka). And again, they will assure anyone that will listen that they could not have accomplished that without the embryonic stem cell research.
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