Image by Andrew Mason
Scientists in Japan have shown that stem cells can be created quickly and cheaply by shocking blood cells by dipping them into acid in what is being heralded as a “major scientific discovery” that could revolutionise personalised medicine.
The technique was show to be successful with mice in study, published in the journal Nature, and could make stem cell therapies cheaper, faster, and safer. Research is now taking place into whether the technique can be as readily applied to human blood cells.
Stem cells do not have a specific role and can become liver, muscle, blood, or nerve cells and have become a major field of study in recent years and scientists look for ways that they can help regenerate the body.
Embryos are a controversial source of stem cells, and use from such sources has already been mostly replaced with a technique to genetically reprogrammed skin cells. However this process is still very slow, and the new technique to create stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells should speed up the process significantly.