Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012 PARIS Research in reprogrammed cells, which on Monday earned the 2012 Nobel Prize in medicine, has been hailed as a new dawn for regenerative medicine but remains troubled by several clouds. Kyoto University's Shinya Yamanaka and Britain's John Gurdon were honored with the world's paramount award in medicine for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). They discovered that a mature, adult cell can be turned back to an infant, versatile state called a stem cell. First theorized in the late 19th century, stem cells are touted as a source of replacement tissue, fixing almost anything from malfunctioning hearts and lungs, damaged spines, Parkinson's disease or even baldness. The first human trials were launched only in 2010, and progress has been dogged by the contested use of stem cells taken from early stage embryos, where the most adaptable, or pluripotent, cells are found. Created by Yamanaka in 2006, iPSCs ease the moral row as they derive from adult cells, not embryos, said University of Oxford ethics professor Julian Savulescu. Ordinary skin cells can be used as the starting material. "Many people objected to the creation of embryos for research, describing it as cannibalizing human beings," Savulescu said. George … Continue reading →

Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka warned patients on Tuesday about unproven "stem cell therapies" offered at clinics and hospitals in a growing number of countries, saying they were highly risky. The Internet is full of advertisements touting stem cell cures for just about any disease -- from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, eye problems, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries -- in countries such as China, Mexico, India, Turkey and Russia. Yamanaka, who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday with John Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain, called for caution. "This type of practice is an enormous problem, it is a threat. Many so-called stem cell therapies are being conducted without any data using animals, preclinical safety checks," said Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan. "Patients should understand that if there are no preclinical data in the efficiency and safety of the procedure that he or she is undergoing ... it could be very dangerous," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. Yamanaka and Gurdon shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs. "I … Continue reading →

THE Nobel Prize-winning discovery of how to reprogram ordinary cells to behave like embryonic stem cells offers a way to skirt around ethical problems with human embryos, but safety concerns make their future use in treating disease uncertain. While researchers have already applied the scientific breakthroughs of Britain's John Gurdon and Japan's Shinya Yamanaka to study how diseases develop, making such cells into new treatments will involve a lot more checks. Stem cells act as the articlebody's master cells, providing the source material for all other cells. They could transform medicine by regenerating tissue for diseases ranging from blindness to Parkinson's disease. Creating embryo-like stem cells without destroying embryos gets round a key controversy by avoiding the need to process embryos left over at fertility clinics a system that has led to political objections in the United States and elsewhere. Reprogrammed cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells offer an ethically neutral alternative. They have been a source of intense research since Yamanaka discovered their potential in 2006, building on work that Gurdon did in frogs and tadpoles 40 years earlier. Recently, however, different research groups have noticed problems with iPS cells, suggesting they may not be … Continue reading →