Cellular Alchemy: Transforming into Stem Cells

Wow. This is a big week for stem cell research. There’s so much talk going on about it though, that I haven’t been able to keep up with (I haven’t even gotten around to reading the papers yet), but genetically manipulating fibroblasts to become ESC(embryonic stem cell)-like sort of sounds like alchemy in a way, doesn’t it? Yet that’s essentially what has been done, in mice anyway, and although there’s a lot of information to churn through, and even then there are more technical hurdles to leap through before getting it to work with human cells, but still…

Anyway, while I digest the papers myself, here are some other big names who are covering the news:

The Daily Transcript has two posts:

Read this stem cell paper!
Yes, it is true, you can now make your own stem cells

There’s Nature News:
Simple Switch Turns Cells Embryonic

Next is the Science Times:
Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells

ScienceDaily has its coverage:
Researchers Reprogram Normal Tissue Cells Into Embryonic Stem Cells

And to put it all in a nice perspective, the Denialism Blog has:
Death of a Wedge Issue

• Okita, K., Ichisaka, T. & Yamanaka, S. Nature doi:10.1038/nature05934 (2007).
• Wernig, M. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature05944 (2007).
• Maherali, N. et al. Cell Stem Cell doi:10.1016/j.stem.2007.05.014 (2007).
• Takahashi, K. & Yamanaka, S. Cell 126, 663–676 (2006).