Dr. Curt Freed’s Reaction to Stem Cell Discovery

Shinya Yamanaka has made the remarkable discovery that both mouse and human skin fibroblasts can be converted to something close to embryonic stem cells by inserting four new genes into the skin cells. These cells are no better than the currently available human embryonic stem cells. They may make it possible to make custom stem cells for the individual to get around the problem of immune rejection. Generating cells for an individual patient would make the cells quite expensive, particularly if the FDA requires that each batch of cells be proved safe from tumor formation.

At this point, the Yamanaka stem cells are remarkable for showing that it takes only a few genes to make a cell reverse its fully differentiated state as a skin cell and become a very flexible stem cell.

Submitted by:

Curt R. Freed, MD
Professor and Head
Division of Clinical Pharmacology
Director, Neurotransplantation Program for Parkinson's Disease
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Denver, Colorado

Other Resources:

Revolutionary' Method Gives Skin Cells Power of Embryo Cells
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=home&sid=aSX77VI5ZvVc

Questions, Answers on Stem Cells
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gUDxS72WRco4BmOUMcQddmCsTrhwD8T1EOT82