How coincidental!
Aussies joining new stem cell research
June 10, 2008 - 3:31PM
Australian scientists have joined growing international efforts to develop
ethically-acceptable stem cell technologies to revolutionise the treatment of many diseases.
Researchers at the Australian Stem Cell Centre (ASCC) in Melbourne have begun to cultivate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), a more ethical alternative to controversial embryonic stem cell research.
Unlike embryonic stem cells which are created from human embryos that are later destroyed, iPS cells are
created from skin cells or adult cells and can be reprogrammed by using viruses to insert four genes into the cell to make it pluripotent, or capable of turning into different cell types.
Dr Andrew Laslett, of the ASCC, said the technology had the potential to produce human tissue to treat patients with specific diseases or injuries.
"
What's different about these cells from the human embryonic stem cell is that they are created not from embryos but from skin cells or adult cells from the human body," Dr Laslett said.
"What you then have the capacity to do with this type of cell or this technology is to make both patient-specific and disease-specific stem cell lines.
"Probably, in the longer term, a patient-specific stem cell line means you can get a skin cell from a patient with a specific disease, add the four genes and turn it into pluripotent cell to then potentially be able to grow that cell up to the specific cell type required to treat a disease or injury."
While the new technology was announced last November by US and Japanese experts, the Australian research team took delivery of a batch of iPS cells last month and have begun to grow their own colonies for further research.
So far, the Melbourne colonies were thriving, but there were still many hurdles to overcome with the new technology in terms of safety and efficacy, with early iPS cell tests showing the development of cancer in animals, Dr Laslett said.
He added that new advances would not have been possible without the original breakthrough provided by the advent of embryonic stem cell research 10 years ago.
"Without embryonic stem cell research, we would never have discovered iPS cells. The genes used to create iPS cells were recognised because they were important in embryonic stem cells," he said.
"It's changing the face of the way we do research at the moment with a large potential to change the way clinical medicine is carried out in the future."
Currently, seven other groups - in the US, Scotland, Germany, Japan and China - are involved in developing iPS cell research.
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