When is a stem cell really a stem cell?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 18:42
in Biology & Nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells -- adult cells reprogrammed to look and function like versatile embryonic stem cells -- are of growing interest in medicine. They may provide a way to create different kinds of patient-matched stem cells as treatments for disease, while sidestepping many of the ethical questions surrounding stem cells created from embryos. However, the production of iPS cells is often imprecise, yielding many incompletely reprogrammed cells. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have developed a technique to help distinguish these cells from the desired pure stem cells.