Progress in the Reasearch on Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Pluripotent stem cells are the stem cells that can only differentiate into a limited range of differentiated cells. (2) They have the ability to give rise to all somatic cells from ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm, as well as gametes. Naturally it can be found in embryos as Embryonic stem cells (ES cells). Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells or iPSC) are the pluripotent stem cells that are generated directly from adult cells, first discovered by Shinya Yamanaka in 2006 by using a set of reprogramming factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc or LIN28 and Nanog) (3) to reprogram mature cells back to a pluripotent state (4).

The goal of this paper is to compare the utility of adult, embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to treat Parkinson’s disease. As such several things will be assessed, dosage of stemcells, improvement in motor function, in combination with the presence of α-synuclein proteins and cell survival.

. Embryonic stem cells have been identified by scientist as a type of stem cell that can advance regenerative medicine. The potential of regenerative medicine ranges from allowing pancreatic cells to produce insulin for diabetics to reconnecting the nerves in severed spinal cords. However, the greatest potential embryonic stem cells presents are its ability to change into any of the more than 200 different cell types in the body. This ability to change into any cell type can produce cures for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or any of the other conditions that stem cell therapy might help therefore improving the lives of those who live with these

“Genetic engineering and drug development can cure and therapies of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, so embryonic stem cells in not the only way to treat patients” (McLean 3). People witness the development of cancer treatments with the enhancement of more effective drugs. Also, nanotechnology allows scientists to deliver drugs only to the cancerous cells, so that the nearby healthy cells remain unaffected. Genetic engineering provides prospect in curing Parkinson’s disease which causes loss of body control. “Scientists develop Parkinson’s disease in laboratory mice to and genetically engineer their nerve cells to make them become light sensitive. When these nerve cells are exposed to light, then nerve impulses travel along them and the mice are again able to move their bodies” (McLean 4). People speculate that this discovery can be used to cure Parkinson’s in humans. Critics of embryonic stem cell research believe that people don’t need to pursuing embryonic stem cell research will be negated by promising advances in drug development and genetic

The creation of induced pluripotent stem cells by direct reprogramming has allowed for the circumvention of using embryonic stem cells while still leaving the cells with the ability to maintain pluripotency. Instead of ES cells which were originally derived from the epiblast of mouse embryos, IPS cells were generated from mouse embryonic fibroblasts. This eliminated both any ethical concerns for whether those cells were a living being or not and the need to destroy embryos at the blastocyst stage. An advantage of IPS cells is that they are derived from human somatic cells which makes them easy to acquire due to the possibility of using skin or blood cells. They can also be grown and differentiated individually for each person that the sample of somatic cells is taken from which eliminates the possibility of having any immune reaction and rejection to the differentiated cells during transplantation. These characteristics of IPS cells are important because they are what enables us to safely and accurately transform these affected cells from patients cells into neurons and confidently study them.

Researchers successfully attained embryonic stem cells from the embryos of mice in 1981, which led to the discovery of this process in human beings in 1998 (National Institutes of Health, 2001). Embryonic stem cells are derived from an in vitro embryo between five days and seven weeks. Regenerative medicine can benefit greatly from the characteristics of embryonic stem cells. This process enables damaged organs and tissues to heal themselves with the help of implanted stem cells matching the organ (Hunziker, 2010, p. 1). There are two traits

The use of stem cells can advance drug development, knowledge of disease, patience specific disease treatment, and can bypass the limits of mouse-models for research. According to the National Institute of Health (1), stem cells are unique in the following ways: they can divide and renew themselves for long periods, they are unspecialized, and they can give rise to specialized cell types. The uniqueness of these stem cells allows for the testing of new drugs, cell-based therapies and the study of human development including cancer research. Human stem cell therapies have been used for the treatment of neurological disease in human clinical trials such as Parkinson’s disease (2), spinal cord injury (3,4) stroke (5), and

There are several new methods that have been developed since the start of the highly controversial stem cell debate which rectifies the major differences on both sides. New solutions such as Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS) acts as an alternate method to embryonic research in that it uses cellular reprogramming of adult skin cells.“The benefit of iPS is that stem cells can be created without the use of embryos, however, the cells resemble embryos in that they can, theoretically and under the appropriate conditions, be made to differentiate into any type of cell found in the body ” (Phillips, 2010). . There are also techniques being developed that use amnionic fluid, or stem cell extraction techniques that do not damage the embryo, that also provide alternatives for obtaining viable stem cell lines ” (Phillips, 2010). The only caveat to all of these newly developed alternatives is that no solution has been studied long enough to claim that it can be an effective substitute 100%. “To begin with, demand for

Many scientists believe that embryonic stem cell (ESC) research is the key to curing diseases such as cancer and HIV. Stem cells are so important to biomedical research because they are primitive cells that are capable of replicating indefinitely producing a multitude of different types of cells. This means that one of these pre-determined cells has to potential of becoming any range of over two hundred tissues with epithelial cells to blood and

As technology advances, the use of embryonic stem cell research has also expanded. Stem cells have shown promise in personalized medicine as they are undifferentiated and easily conform with the surrounding cells. There are two areas of research that stem cells are showing massive potential, cell regeneration and organ transplantation. It is thought that stem cells have the capability to “model genetic disorders in a reliable fashion such that no other method allows. It seems likely that we could use stem cells to model cells with genetic disorders and figure out how to mute certain genes, thus eliminating or drastically reducing the effects of the disease,” (1). Although embryonic stem cells (ESC) are showing great potential towards medical advancements, there are many people who are opposed to the idea of using these cells due to the aggressive nature in which we extract ESC.

The ability to manipulate the stem cell corresponding to a specific organ/tissue remains important. A type of stem cell that can be manipulated is the embryonic stem cell. These stem cells descend from embryos aging from three to five days (Watt) (Driskell). During earlier stages, scientists describe embryonic stem cells as “blastocysts” which contain over one-hundred and fifty cells (Watt) (Driskell). They duplicate into more cells or transform to any cell located in the body (Watt) (Driskell). This “duplication” allows embryonic stem cells to regenerate and repair diseased tissues. Embryonic stem cells gain importance in cancer treatments—if doctors diagnose patients with leukemia, then during chemotherapy, the doctor can infuse embryonic stem cells into the body. Since the cells are young, they can repair the targeted cell, aiding cancer treatments and the patient. In addition, this technique is used with another type of embryonic stem cell called “pluripotent stem cells”. Pluripotent stem cells originate as inner mast cells (cells

Parkinson’s disease, Huntington's disease, and Alzheimer’s disease are neurodegenerative disorders that share similar pathological features, including delayed onset, specific neurological damage, and protein dysfunction [1]. Over the past decade, the increasing prevalence of these disorders is apparent. Although the advanced research into these pathogeneses has identified related genetic mutations, the progression to which they link is too slow to reveal the underlying mechanism and correspondent treatment [2]. Today, the emergence of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has made a breakthrough in the recent neurological research and overcome the hurdles met by cellular and animal models.

and plenty of other degenerative diseases while the cure lies in our hands? After James Thompson, a developmental biologist, reported that he had derived the first human embryonic stem cell line (Thomson), the potential of curing degenerative diseases was revealed. Ph.D. holder and deputy director of FDA’s office of Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies, Stephanie Simek, explains that stem cells are unspecialized cells (qtd. in “FDA Warns About Stem Cell Claims”). In other words, since they are unspecialized cells, they can “…generate lots of cells and, under the right conditions, become one of the many cell types

Since the discovery of human embryonic stem cells, scientists have had high hopes for their use in treating a wider variety of diseases because they are “pluripotent,” which means they are capable of differentiating into one of many cell types in the body.

iPSCs are adult stem cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to behave like the pluripotent stem cells found in embryos, i.e. can differentiate into any cell type in the human body. This was first completed successfully in mice in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka and his team (Takahashi et al., 2006), then in humans in 2007 both by Yamanaka (Takahashi et al., 2007), and by James Thomson and his team in America independently (Yu, et al., 2007). Yamanaka and Thomson’s methods were similar. In the report by Yu et