Stem Cell Research Milestone Achieved
Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 21, 2007)
A "monumental" international breakthrough in stem cell research has left the head of McMaster University's stem cell laboratory thrilled about the new vistas it could open for future medical developments.
Two journal papers published yesterday describe similar success in converting human skin cells into stem cells, with the capability to become cells of any kind in the body.
The process had first been realized in mice, starting an international race to achieve the same results in humans.
If the research can be replicated, it could create an alternative supply of stem cells that would not require the destruction of human embryos -- a controversial but scientifically necessary process for trying to unlock their potential for a range of medical applications, from regenerating tissue to interrupting cancer.
Converting skin cells could also create a stem cell supply that would come from patients themselves, eliminating the need for cloning and the possibility of rejection.
"It's a monumental leap forward, for sure," said Mick Bhatia, director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute. "It's very exciting. It's yet another opportunity for us to apply this to health care."
Similar sentiments are echoing throughout the scientific community abroad.
"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone -- the biological equivalent of the Wright brothers' first airplane," said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief science officer of Advanced Cell Technology, based in California.
"It's a bit like learning how to turn lead into gold," said Lanza, while cautioning that the work is far from providing medical payoffs.
"It's a huge deal," agreed Rudolf Jaenisch, a prominent stem cell scientist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass.
"You have the proof of principle that you can do it."
McMaster's Bhatia said that having access to an alternative source of stem cells could also make it easier or faster to solve the ultimate puzzle of stem cell research: how to get the cells to do specifically what scientists want them to do.
"A lab like mine will be very aggressively pursuing those things," Bhatia said.
The McMaster institute made an international breakthrough of its own four months ago with research showing that stem cells make their own satellites, or niche cells, that in turn keep them fed and allow them to replicate -- a major step toward understanding how and why they specialize.
A new form of stem cell could offer a way around religious and ethical obstacles associated with using embryos -- obstacles that have limited research elsewhere. That, in turn, could also bring many new players and more resources to the field, Bhatia said.
"I think the more people who are trying to get at the ultimate problem, which is regenerating tissue, the better," he said. "If this brings more folks and greater collaborations into play, I think that would be a wonderful outcome."
The worldwide research community had been buzzing over the possibility of the skin-cell conversion, Bhatia said.
So far, the major concern over the new skin-cell process is that it uses a retrovirus to force the expression of genes not usually found in skin cells by disrupting the DNA, which can create cancerous tumours.
Bhatia said there is hope that the same result can be achieved without disrupting the DNA, by using chemicals or proteins.
The new work is being published online by two journals, Cell and Science. The Cell paper is from a team led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. The Science paper is from a team led by Junying Yu, working in the lab of stem-cell pioneer James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Both reported creating cells that behaved like stem cells in a series of lab tests.
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With files from The Associated Press