Students have asked me about the ethical difficulties of embryonic stem cell research a number of times in the past, and it’s a great question to pose at candidates’ interviews. That topic may now have become mute though, as work published by two groups in Science and Cell suggests that you can dedifferentiate your own skin fibroblasts back into a pluripotent stem cell.
Now that’s very handy. If you can get your own cells to become stem cells that you can then encourage to become whichever cell type you need to fix an organ or a tissue, then who needs cloning? Or embryonic stem cells? Which rather buggers up science fiction writers and cheers up pro-lifers (although not for long, I’m sure).
The lab work so far has shown that it’s technically feasible and more work needs to be done to find a safe method of dedifferentiating human fibroblasts for use in humans. Of course we’re all still working in our own areas to find the best ways of getting pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into our favourite cell types, and how then to get them to grow an implant or rebuild damaged tissue. Knowing we could potentially use a patient’s own skin cells as a source for future therapies is a great help though.
Science Mag article
BBC article
