Researchers Create Embryonic-Like Stem Cells From Human Testes

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"But I think we are not completely there where we want to be," he added, "namely at pluripotency absolutely comparable to that of embryonic stem cells." In particular, he noted that the study authors failed to show creation of cells called cardiomyocytes, which cause heart muscle to beat.

The new study is the latest in a string of related work on creating embryonic-like stem cells. Researchers and clinicians alike are excited by the potential of embryonic stem cells because they are "pluripotent," meaning they can create any cell type in the body. Most adult cells, in contrast, if they can divide at all, can only create cells of the same type -- that is, a dividing skin cell can only create another skin cell. So, embryonic stem cells could be used to create new tissues for transplantation, say, or to study how genetic mutations cause development to go awry.

The problem, of course, is that to obtain embryonic stem cells, an embryo must be destroyed -- a process fraught with ethical and political difficulty. Recently, researchers sidestepped this problem by turning back the clock on adult mouse and human "somatic" cells, such as skin cells, to make them behave as if they were embryonic. The trick is to introduce four genes into the cell you want to reprogram, creating so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

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Originally, iPS cells were created using modified retroviruses or lentiviruses -- the same type of virus that causes AIDS, for instance. But this type of virus inserts its viral genetic material into the host cell's chromosomes, causing mutations, which effectively made the process a non-starter for clinical work.

Two weeks ago, a team at Harvard described a way to accomplish the same thing using viruses that skip this genetic integration step, theoretically making the process safer.

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