New route to stem cell therapy opens up
The technique makes induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which have the same capacity as primordial embryonic stem cells to turn into every tissue of the body, but do not involve the use of embryos. What’s more, it doesn’t involve tinkering with the skin cells’ DNA, and so gets round one of the main obstacles to using this technique in people.
“Our technology does not alter the DNA of the host cells, so completely eliminates the risks associated with DNA-based vectors which can integrate into the cell’s DNA and possibly lead to cancer,” says Derrick Rossi of the Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, head of the team that developed the new method.
Other stem cell researchers have hailed this is a breakthrough. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, calls it a game-changer.