More on Skin Cells "Made Into" Embryonic Stem Cells
Related News: Stem Cell Research, Stem Cells and SkinFollowing up on the embryonic stem cells created from skin cells ... this news is flying wildly all over the internet ... with posts coming in from many sources .. will try to post a few of them here ...
Many of the mainstream journals are reporting how Harvard researchers have for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells. The biggest piece of this that makes people sit up is, this is all done without using human eggs or making new human embryos in the process .. essentially what has always been required in the past.
This procedure uses laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells to effectively "reprogram" the genes in a person's skin cell, which essentially turns that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell itself.
This current approach to converting skin cells to embryonic stem cells is still obviously in an early stage of development. However, if additional studies confirm its usefulness, it could offer a significant way around the social and religious debate that has for years complicated human embryonic stem cell research.
Additionally, since the new stem cells created using this technique are rejuvenated versions of a person's own skin cells, the DNA in those new stem cells matches the DNA of the person who provided the skin cells. This would mean that potentionally any tissues grown from those newly minted stem cells could be transplanted directly into the person to treat a disease without much risk that they would be rejected, as they are essentially an exact genetic match.
However, there is the one drawback (pretty darn significant one really)....
The researchers emphasized that this technique is still far from finding an application in medicine. As this procedure involves the fusion of a stem cell and a person's ordinary skin cell, the methodology actually leads to the creation of a hybrid cell. While that cell has all the characteristics of a new embryonic stem cell, it contains the DNA of the person who donated the skin cell AND ALSO the DNA that was in the initial embryonic stem cell.
So essentially, if these hybrid cells are to be used to grow into replacement parts to be transplanted into a person, the extra DNA must obviously be extracted. Furthermore, it is being reported that some related research teams are working on the means of removing the additional DNA with some degree of success .. So this may be a feasible solution in the near term ...
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New hybrid stem cells may skirt embryo debate
Posted on August 23, 2005 09:03 AM