"A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed form the specialized cells that make up heart muscle."This great step forward in stem cell modification enabling a patent with a failing heart to grown another from harvested skin stem cells. This obviously has a great number of advantages including elimination of the chance that the patent will reject the new heart because it contains the patents own DNA. It will also eliminate the long waiting lists for donor hearts and virtually eliminate the need for them.
While research on embryonic stem cells is controversial and illegal in many countries, because of the destruction a human embryo, lessons learned through such research apply to current work with induced pluripotent stem cells made from adult cells. This research provides a platform for further research into both adult and eventually embryonic stem cells with the further deregulation of embryonic stem cell research.
The technique is also far from perfected. The researchers used a virus to insert four transcription factors into the genes of the skin cell, reprogramming it back to an embryo-like state. Because the virus is taken up by the new cell, there is a possibility it eventually could cause cancer, so therapies from reprogrammed skin cells will likely have to wait until new methods are perfected.
This research proving that induced pluripotent stem cells can become functional heart cells, is one major step along the way to better treatment of disease and injury. Video of the cells contracting seen below.
Student number: 41721661
Name: Luke Carroll
Reference:
University of Wisconsin-Madison (2009, February 13). Stem Cells From Skin Cells Can Make Beating Heart Muscle Cells. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212161808.htm
