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Published online 1 March 2009 | 458, 19 (2009) | doi:10.1038/458019a
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Virus-free pluripotency for human cells
Stem-cell advance could bring tailored treatments closer.
For the first time, specialized human cells have been transformed into a state similar to that seen in embryonic stem cells, without using viruses. The advance edges stem-cell biologists closer to clearing a barrier to using reprogrammed cells for therapies and drug screening.
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This is one of the most fascinating -- and promising -- areas of scientific research, at least to me, a non-scientist (but one who's a huge fan of anything and everything to do with science). I like it that one of the most obvious benefits that will come once scientists achieve stem cell production without any dependency on human embryos will be the ending of that fiercely-held concern that bothers a great many people (if rather unnecessarily so). I wish I could offer something scientific of use to researchers, but I can't. Absent that ability, I stand on the sidelines cheering this and every such effort. And I want to thank Nature.com for being in the forefront of bringing this sort of news to the wider public in digestable ways.
iPS cell geneartion by introducing Yamanaka factors by non-viral method is a much awaited milestone in Stem cell research. It is also again one of the solid proof as well as implication of classical principle of "jumping genes" given by Barbara Mc Clintock.In the future the approaches to completely get rid of viral vectors by easier biophysical/biochemical methods will be certainly promising especially in the treatment of diseases and regenerative medicine.I extend my thanks to Nature magazine for reporting such an important and contemporary breakthrough!
the non-viral method will be put a wonderful progress in organ transplantation. Thanks to the Nature.com for reporting it.
Interesting work though I don't think this will solve the ethical debate about stem cells. Transposons have rights too and many would question the morality of bringing an innocent transposon into this world for the sole purpose of creating stem cells, only to toss it away like a piece of trash when we don't need it anymore. As a born-again molecularist I believe that every organic molecule (including transposons) has a soul and should be afforded the same rights as an early-stage human embryo. But it seems that our beliefs are not given the same respect as the 'mainstream' religions who have the power and money to dictate government policy. Martin Kilpatrick Minister, Molecular Church of America
Mr. Kilpatrick: Can't we for once applaud a great scientific breakthrough without some childish mockery in the commentary? My congratulations to the two teams for this great step forward. If we can abolish the use of viral vectors in the creation of iPS line, we can safeguard against the problems that arise with the use of current embryonic stem cells. Hopefully that will open a wider avenue for exploring clinical applications.
GETTING EVEN CLOSER TO WHAT I HAVE PREDICTED. If one read carefully these two new reports and compare them with my many criticisms on iPS research (collected at http://im1.biz/Cloning.htm) one may find that the advancements are actually moving closer to the end point as I have already pointed out. So so-called "creation" of stem cells may be actually some kind transformation of pre-existing stem cells or other cells identified as stem cells. What really happened may be the activation of the reproduction of cells (not just the stem cells) and then the selection of the proliferated stem cells or other cells marked as stem cells. The activation does not require any permanent insertion of the so-called "inducing" factors which can be introduced in different ways if the cells are at the hands of molecular biologists. However, cell reproduction may be activated even without the introduction of any such oncogene-nature "inducing" factors. So, I wish to repeat my earlier published prediction: the next milestone paper on iPSCs may be entitled "INDUCING-FACTOR-FREE iPS CELLS". Detailed criticisms on these iPSCs twin papers will be submitted to Nature as Communications Arising. But don't be surprised that they will be end up again in the list of http://im1.biz/Cloning.htm ./////Shi V. Liu (SVL8EPA@gmail.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1; http://www.stemcell8.cn/index.php )
It is certainly a breakthrough in steam cell research, however, utilizing transposon instead of virus is just as dangerous. Being able to remove the transposon is the holly grail now.
Now the next step is electroporate the factors mRNA to the cells instead of any DNA.
i am a pharmacy student.have heard a lot about the importance of pleuripotent stem cell therapy in the recent years.it was an astonishing improvement that was made by yamanaka in the last year..and now this too...this is a promising field in the future pharma industry.i congratulate all those people behind this work.also thanks nature for bringing it in to us.