Researchers Create Embryonic Stem Cells Without Embryo

Researchers have demonstrated that any mature adult cell has the potential to turn into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell. “It may not be necessary to create an embryo to acquire embryonic stem cells," explained senior author Charles Vacanti, who is the Vandam/Covino Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School.

Now, researchers from Harvard University-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), in collaboration with the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan, have demonstrated that any mature adult cell (a “somatic” cell) has the potential to turn into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell. In an article to be published in the Jan. 30 issue of Nature, researchers demonstrate, in a preclinical model, a novel and unique way that cells can be reprogrammed, a phenomenon they call stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP). Importantly, this process does not require the introduction of new outside DNA, the process commonly used to induce adult cells back into a state of pluripotentency.

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Researchers Create Embryonic Stem Cells Without Embryo 

Source: Lab Manager
Image credits: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
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