Study Sets Standard for Evaluating Pluripotent Stem Cell Quality

June 10, 2016

(PhysOrg) – As the promise of using regenerative stem cell therapies draws closer, a consortium of biomedical scientists reports about 30 percent of induced pluripotent stem cells they analyzed from 10 research institutions were genetically unstable and not safe for clinical use. In a study published June 9 by the journal Stem Cell Reports, and funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the multi-institutional research team reports on the comprehensive characterization of a large set of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Specialized iPSCs are reprogrammed from adult skin or infant cord blood cells and can become any cell type in the body – a condition called pluripotency that mimics the function of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).