how are stem cells obtained

embryonic stem cells are a huge next stepfor medicine, but they’re mired in controversy. so what if you could have all the benefitsof regenerative medicine, without the thorny moral dilemma? hello science lovers, julian here for dnews.there’s been a huge breakthrough in medicine this week; induced pluripotent stem cellswere used in a tissue transplant for the first time ever. we did it! yeah!! oh am i goingto need to explain that? ok. first, let’s get everybody up to speed onstem cells. this is more important to you than you realize because you were at somepoint nothing more than 50 to 150 of them. you probably don’t remember, it was only4 days after you were conceived.

what makes embryonic stem cells amazing isthey are pluripotent, meaning they can become almost any type of cell. this means they canbe used to replace damaged tissue and may one day be an alternative to organ transplants.this is huge. in the united states an average of 79 people receive an organ transplant everyday, but another 18 people die waiting for a transplant that will never come. the 79 who do get a donor will have to takemedication to prevent transplant rejection for the rest of their lives, but even thenthe risk remains. that problem doesn’t exist with embryonic stem cells. so we can savethousands of people a year and improve the quality of life and lifespan of tens of thousandsmore. what’s the problem here?

well the only way to get pluripotent cellsis from embryos. which are pre-people. or current people, depending on where you standon the issue. obviously, there’s a heated controversy there and i’m sure the commentswill reflect that (be nice, guys). umbilical cord blood has multipotent stem cells, butthey’re more limited. and we all have adult stem cells but those are even less versatile.so there are no alternatives. until now. shinya yamanaka of kyoto university discovereda method to create pluripotent stem cells from adult cells. it’s like diet stem cells:all of the flavor with none of the calories. though “flavor” in this case means life-changingbenefits and “calories” means severe moral dilemma of using undeveloped humans in medicine.and for his breakthrough, yamanaka shared

the nobel prize for physiology in 2012. and now, here we are, september 2014, whereon friday, at 2:20 local time, japanese doctors stopped the macular degeneration of a 70 year-oldwoman by transplanting a sheet of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from inducedpluripotent stem cells made from reprogrammed cells of the patient’s own skin! we didit! probably! now we wait and see if the procedure checks the macular degeneration without becomingcancerous or rejected. by the way the sheet of tissue used was just3 by 1.3mm. that’s about that big. and what a huge step that is. if you’d like to learn more about how youreye works and why the macula is important

to vision, check out this video. as a bonus,you can stare deep into trace’s dreamy, dreamy eyes. can you think of any creative potential usesfor induced pluripotent stem cells *cough* wolverine *cough*? let us know in the comments.hopefully it stems productive discussion. remember to subscribe for the latest in science,and i’ll see you next time on dnews.