Scientific Revolution: Skin transformed into stem cells through reprogramming!

Published by BBC on 20/11/2007

Human skin cells have been reprogrammed by two groups of scientists to mimic embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body. The breakthrough promises a plentiful new source of cells for use in research into new treatments for many diseases. Crucially, it could mean that such research is no longer dependent on using cells from human embryos, which has proved highly controversial. The US and Japanese studies feature in the journals Science and Cell. Until now only cells taken from embryos were thought to have an unlimited capacity to become any of the 220 types of cell in the human body - a so-called pluripotent state. Click for more...

[G.K Comment: You may wonder why such an article appears on an eBrain blog. Well it was suspected for many years that cells are generic structures that can be programmed to perform different body functions. Now with this revolutionary discovery, scientists have proven that theory to be true. Likewise neurons are generic structures that get programmed differently for vision, speech, abstract thinking etc... Only if we can decode the way they process and exchange information then one of the few remaining unsolved mysteries of science may come to light.]