In a bid to sidestep the ethical debate over the use of human embryos in medical research, scientist have developed a way to derive viable stem cell lines without harming the embryo. They did so by extracting a single cell from the embryo – as in vitro fertilization clinics do when they test for genetic defects and introducing a common molecule called laminin to keep it in a stem cell, or pluripotent state.
Subsequent development of the embryo was unaffected by the biopsy, according to the study published by the journal Cell Stem Cell. The new technique holds the promise of dramatically speeding up clinical applications of stem cell therapies for a wide range of debilitating disease and illness.
Stem cells are considered a potential magic bullet because they can be transformed into any cell in the body and potentially used to help replace damaged or diseased cells, tissues or organs. However, embryonic stem cell research is highly controversial because, until now, viable embryos were destroyed in the process of extracting the stem cells.
The groups of scientists recently bypassed this problem by transforming human skin cells into stem cells. Skin cells will likely become the most common source of stem cells, said Australian researcher Alan Trounso, who heads the world’s biggest stem cell research project at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
But skin cells are still far from ready for clinical use because the transformation process introduces potentially deadly genetic alterations and viruses.
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