Word: reprogramming
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Scientists have long hoped to find a way to reprogram a patient's cells to produce new ones. Research with stem cells, and similar entities called iPS cells that were announced last year, has aimed to achieve this in a two-step process...
...Harvard researchers have already created stem cells for ten genetic disorders using a new technique that isolates human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The technique allows scientists to genetically manipulate a patient's cells—typically skin cells or blood cells—and reprogram them into a pluripotent state; like embryonic stem cells, these iPS cells are then capable of morphing into any type of body tissue...
...still a long way off, mostly because iPS requires the use of viruses to deliver the time-reversing genes into adult cells - that works in the lab, but it is not yet safe for patients. To use iPS cells in patients, researchers would have to find a way to reprogram adult cells using chemicals, rather than genes...
...current reliance on viruses renders the stem cell lines unsafe for transplantation because the process genetically modifies the reprogrammed cells. But Eggan predicted that researchers would soon fix this shortcoming with a process that instead uses chemicals to reprogram cells...
This method takes regular human cells—in this case skin cells—and uses viruses to reprogram them into cells that can develop into any kind of human tissue, in theory providing all the benefits of embryonic stem cells...