Skin Cells Directly Converted to Beating Heart Cells
From ScienceDaily: "scientists have converted adult skin cells directly into beating heart cells efficiently without having to first go through the laborious process of generating embryonic-like stem cells. The powerful general technology platform could lead to new treatments for a range of diseases and injuries involving cell loss or damage, such as heart disease, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's disease. ... this work represents a new paradigm in stem cell reprogramming. We hope it helps overcome major safety and other technical hurdles currently associated with some types of stem cell therapies. ... scientists have been trying to develop ways to 'reprogram' adult human cells back to a more embryonic-like, or pluripotent, state, from which they are able to divide and then change into any of the body's cell types. ... Although the technology to generate these cells, dubbed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, represents a major advance, there are some hurdles to overcome before it can be adapted to therapies. ... [researchers] decided to try to tweak the process by completely bypassing the iPS stage and going directly from one type of mature cell (a skin cell) to another (a heart cell). ... the protocol is fundamentally different from what has been done by other scientists in the past [and] giving the cells a different kind of signal could turn them into brain cells or pancreatic cells."
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110130213901.htm