Mar 02 2009
Addendum: To be fair, last year’s break through was in mice, while this year it is in humans (as I predicted, it was a quick transition given the organ involved (skin)).
The researchers produced the cells by using strands of genetic material, instead of potentially dangerous genetically engineered viruses, to coax skin cells into a state that appears biologically identical to embryonic stem cells.
“It’s a leap forward in the safe application of these cells,” said Andras Nagy of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, who helped lead the international team of researchers that described the work in two papers being published online today by the journal Nature. “We expect this to have a massive impact on this field.”
In the new work, Nagy and his colleagues in Toronto and at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland instead used a sequence of DNA known as a transposon, which can insert itself into the genetic machinery of a cell. In this case, the researchers used a transposon called “piggyBac” to carry four genes that can transform mouse and human embryonic skin cells into iPS cells. After the conversion took place, the researchers removed the added DNA from the transformed cells using a specific enzyme.
These are the true miracles of medicine, which Bush helped promote by blocking funding for the still futile efforts to derive therapies from butchered young humans at the sunrise of their life.