9/30/2010 PERMALINK
New remarkably efficient method for generating human stem cells discovered. SOURCE : The ability to efficiently generate patient-specific stem cells from differentiated cells and then reliably direct them to form specialized cells (like neurons or muscle) has tremendous therapeutic potential for replacing diseased or damaged tissues. However, despite some successes, there have been significant limitations associated with existing methods used to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). But now researchers have found a new method that does not require risky genetic modification and holds great promise for making the reprogramming process more therapeutically relevant. They developed synthetic modified messenger RNA molecules (which they termed modified RNAs" that encoded the appropriate proteins but did not integrate into the cell's DNA. Importantly, the modified RNA method was also used to successfully to control the fate of the iPSCs. These findings demonstrate that the novel RNA-induced iPSC technology offers significant advantages over existing methodologies. 'We believe that our approach has the potential to become a major and perhaps even central enabling technology for cell-based therapies,' explains senior study author, Dr. Derrick J. Rossi from Harvard Medical School.