SCIENTISTS HAVE found a way to make an almost limitless supply of stem cells that could safely be used in patients while avoiding the ethical dilemma of destroying embryos.
In a breakthrough that could have huge implications, British and Canadian scientists have found a way of reprogramming skin cells taken from adults, effectively winding the clock back on the cells until they were in an embryonic form.
The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments that use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.
Sir Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the Sheep and heads the UK’s Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University where the work was done, said: “This is a significant step in the right direction. The team has made great progress and combining this work with that of other scientists working on stem cell differentiation, there is hope that the promise of regenerative medicine could soon be met.”
Stem cells have the potential to be turned into any tissue in the body, an ability that has led researchers to believe they could be used to make “spare parts” to replace diseased and damaged organs and treat conditions as diverse as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and spinal cord injury.
Because the cells can be made from a patient’s own skin, they carry the same DNA and so could be used without a risk of being rejected by the immune system.
Scientists showed they could make stem cells from adult cells more than a year ago, but the cells could never be used in patients because the procedure involved injecting viruses that could cause cancer.
In 2007, researchers in Japan and America said they had turned adult skin cells into stem cells by injecting them with a virus carrying four extra genes.
Now, scientists at the universities of Edinburgh and Toronto have found another method, making so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell therapies a realistic prospect for the first time.
In two papers published in the journal Nature, Keisuke Kaji in Edinburgh and Andras Nagy in Toronto describe how they reprogrammed cells using a safer technique called electroporation.
This allowed the scientists to do away with viruses and ferry genes into the cells through pores.
Once the genes had done their job, the scientists removed them, leaving the cells healthy and intact. Tests on stem cells made from human and mouse cells showed they behaved in the same way as embryonic stem cells.
“I was very excited when I found stem cell-like cells in my culture dishes. Nobody, including me, thought it was really possible,” said Dr Kaji. “It is a step towards the practical use of reprogrammed cells in medicine, perhaps even eliminating the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells.”
Dr Nagy said: “We hope that these stem cells will form the basis for treatment for many diseases and conditions that are currently considered incurable.”
Sir Ian Wilmut said it would be some time before the cells could be used in patients because scientists had yet to find reliable ways of making different tissues from stem cells. ( – Guardian service)