The ethics debate surrounding the use of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is well known. ESCs are traditionally harvested from the inner cell mass of an early developing embryo. Ethicists lament the immorality of destroying what was on its way to being a human life.
The work of Yamanaka in 2006 heralded the beginnings of a new era in stem cell research. His team successfully reprogrammed adult mice skin cells back to a highly primitive ESC like state, terming these cells induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). On all characterization tests the properties of these cells was near identical to that of their authentic counterparts. In 2007 he extended this work creating human iPSCs from terminal fibroblasts.
Ethicists find themselves on a slippery slope contesting the morality of stem cell research using artificially created stem cells.
A problem still remained for the stem cell researcher, however. Yamanaka's approach to influence reprogramming involved the transduction of specific genes into the target genome using retroviruses. Some held fears that this approach may produce defective stem cell lines.
Hochedlinger and his team in March of 2009 came up with a new way to trigger reprogramming. They employed adenoviruses, which by only transient expression of the required transcription factors triggered complete reprogramming of the target cell. After reprogramming they confirmed adenovirus activity had ceased, and endogenous expression of stem cell genes had taken over.
Hocedlinger and his team have contributed one more step towards effective iPSC production safe to be employed in human therapies, and circumventing most ethical debate. His paper can be found at:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122217150/PDFSTART
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