The era of induced stem cell therapy

August 21, 2008

Cells taken from the early developing embryo could then, in principle, be made to make any tissue, organ, limb or the whole body. This is the promise of embryonic stem cells or ES cells.

But ES cell technology is yet to mature, and is beset with problems (not enough of them, immune rejection when put in another body…) and controversy (ethical, religious…) If only we can take any cell in the body and make it as versatile as ES cells, and differentiate into any cell type of our choice! Not being from the germ cell material, it would not make the whole human, but just be tissues and organs; not as totipotent as ES cells but pluripotent. (The Hindu)