Word: reprogramming
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...first described by Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka, who, in 2007, showed that the introduction of four genes into an adult human skin cell could reprogram it back to an embryonic state (Yamanaka had reported the same achievement in mice the previous year). Like embryonic stem cells, these reprogrammed adult cells could be coaxed into becoming any other type of cell - from skin to nerve to muscle. But researchers questioned whether the new stem cells would behave as predictably or as safely as embryonic stem cells, or whether iPS would consistently yield usable cells. "Our work shows that the original method...
...Harvard Medical School (HMS) study released last week shows that Implantable Medical Devices (IMD), such as pacemakers, could be high-risk targets for hackers. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, Beth-Israel Deaconess Hospital, and Harvard Medical School found that hackers could intercept patient information and reprogram the device, potentially endangering the patient by sending additional electrical signals to the heart. The researchers presented their findings last Wednesday, in anticipation of the publication of their paper, “Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses.” The study focused...
Researchers from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Mass. General Hospital (MGH) are one step closer to reprogramming adult stem cells and making them capable of creating tissues for all parts of the body without the use of viruses or cancer-causing genes. Harvard Medical School professor Konrad A. Hochedlinger recently discovered how long adult mouse stem cells need to be exposed to reprogramming factors before they convert to a pluripotent, embryonic-like state, at which point they can be potentially used for medical treatments. According to Hochedlinger, his lab set out to unveil the mysteries of the reprogramming...
...type of tissue, and then be transplanted back into the donor with little risk of rejection. Still, these cells are far from ready for medical use. The viruses used to ferry the genes that manipulate the cells can introduce genetic mutations and cancer. And with myriad ways to reprogram a cell, sorting out the best ones will take time - meaning that stem cells from embryos will remain useful (and controversial) for a while. Both Yamanaka and Thomson admit that we still know too little about how the process works to exploit the method's full potential. Nevertheless, their discovery...
...That's why nearly every major stem cell lab began looking for an alternative approach, the most promising of which was to simply reprogram adult cells without eggs or embryos. "When I started this work, I thought it would be a 20-year, not a few-year problem," says Thomson. But sometimes science can be surprising, and in this case, all it took to accomplish a complex biological time warp was a handful of genes that suppress cells from dividing and maturing...