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Stem cells: Fast and furious

Nature volume 458, pages 962–965 (2009)Cite this article

The field of induced pluripotent stem cells has gone from standing start to headlong rush in less than three years. Monya Baker charts the course so far, and the obstacles ahead.

Back in spring 2007, Shinya Yamanaka thought he had a safe head start in a scientific race. Less than six months earlier he had demonstrated a technique that turned run-of-the-mill body cells into ones much like mouse embryonic stem cells1. Yamanaka's results were met with awe and scepticism. Few believed that a cell's identity was so flexible that the insertion of just four embryonic genes could reprogram it into a cell that could make virtually every body tissue.

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Authors
  1. Monya Baker
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Monya Baker is the editor of Nature Reports Stem Cells.

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Baker, M. Stem cells: Fast and furious. Nature 458, 962–965 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/458962a

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