Fight Aging!

Following up on a post from a few days back on the benefits that the discovery of induced pluripotency is bringing to stem cell research, I thought I'd point out this article:

The first reports of the successful reprogramming of adult human cells back into so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which by all appearances looked and acted liked embryonic stem cells created a media stir. But the process was woefully inefficient: Only one out of 10,000 cells could be persuaded to turn back the clock.

Now, a team of researchers led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, succeeded in boosting the reprogramming efficiency more than 100fold, while cutting the time it takes in half. In fact, they repeatedly generated iPS cells from the tiny number of keratinocytes attached to a single hair plucked from a human scalp.

For a variety of reasons, technical and otherwise, inducing pluripotency in adult cells is within the present capacity of many more laboratories and researchers than embryonic stem cell research. More researchers means faster progress - as illustrated above. I expect to see a great deal of progress in the broader field of controlling our cells resulting from this line of work over the next few years.

Ultimately, the aim is to be able to understand and control the mechanism of potency - thus enabling any cell to be transformed into any other type of cell. The result of all this work would be low cost, efficient regenerative medicine. Age-damaged or injured tissue? No problem, just grow a fresh, undamaged replacement in culture from your own healthy cells.