Major Advance In Understanding Cell Reprogramming

Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital have taken a major step toward eventually being able to reprogram adult cells to an embryonic stem cell-like state without the use of viruses or cancer-causing genes. In a paper released online today by the journal Cell Stem Cell, Konrad Hochedlinger and colleagues report that they have both discovered how long adult cells need to be exposed to reprogramming factors before they convert to an embryonic-like state, and have "defined the sequence of events that occur during reprogramming."

few comments from TA

[mapkinase]

Organism: mouse. Source cells: fibroblasts [wikipedia.org]:

Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) are often used as "feeder cells" in human embryonic stem cell research. However, many researchers are gradually phasing out MEF's in favor of culture media with precisely defined ingredients of exclusively human derivation. Further, the difficulty of exclusively using human derivation for media supplements is most often solved by the use of "defined media" where the supplements are synthetic and achieve the primary goal of eliminating the chance of contamination from derivative sources.

What is interesting is that they are using adult cells.
Article says [sciencedirect.com], that

Fibroblasts were isolated from tail-tip biopsies of newborn (3-8 days of age) mice as well as from embryos and expanded in fibroblast medium

A amjor milestone for stem cell therapies...

[ZonkerWilliam]

This is actually a very major step because up until now most of the stem cell used caused cancerous tumors in the test subject, a definite problem and stumbling block.

Re:A amjor milestone for stem cell therapies...

[repapetilto]

Where does it say anything about the activity of the cells after they are implanted in an organism? As far as I can tell without paying anything they just figured out which transcription factors need to be expressed and in what order and for how long in order for a cell to be in a pluripotent state, a series of signaling factors trigger that gene expression, and developed a way to tell whether the cells are pluripotent or not. Nothing about what your talking about...