Removing One Protein From Adult Cells Enables Them To Efficiently Turn Back The Clock To A Stem-cell-like State

These findings may help facilitate the production of stem cells for medical use, as well as advancing our understanding of the mysterious process by which adult cells can revert back into their original, embryonic state. Embryonic stem cells are those that have not undergone any "specialization"; thus they can give rise to any type of cell in the body. This is what makes them so valuable: They can be used, among other things, to repair damaged tissue, treat autoimmune disease and even grow transplant organs. Using stem cells taken from embryos is problematic because of availability and ethical concerns, but the hopes for their use were renewed in 2006, when a team led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University discovered that it is possible to "reprogram" adult cells. The resulting cells, called "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPSCs), are created by inserting four genes into their DNA. Despite bikram yoga philadelphia this breakthrough, the reprograming process is fraught with difficulty: It can take up to four weeks; the timing is not coordinated among the cells; and less than one percent of the treated cells actually end up becoming stem cells.
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