THE STEM OF THE MATTER

摘要

With their amazing ability to develop into any cell type in the human body, pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) hold great promise for medicine - although it's only recently that they have begun to live up to their potential. Once associated exclusively with the need to harvest cells from embryos — a controversial matter, to say the least — the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) in 2006 significantly altered their public perception and medical prospects. IPSCs can be generated from adult tissue and cells — even harvested from our own skin — and turned into stem cells largely indistinguishable from those derived from an embryo. This technology earned researchers John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012. It also opened up the possibility that each of us could be our own best source of new cells to replace or repair parts of our bodies.