July 19, 2010 - Bloomberg News

Reprogrammed Stem Cells May Have Limited Use in Treatment, Researchers Say

“This study in no way challenges the usefulness of iPS cells for research and drug discovery,” [co-principal investigator George] Daley said in a telephone interview today. “They remain enormously valuable.”

Potent stem cells derived from reprogramming skin or other adult body tissues may have limits on their usefulness as an alternative to cells from human embryos, researchers said.

The study found that induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells, retain a “memory” of their original adult tissue, making it more difficult to turn them into other cell types for medical treatment, according to authors from Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University. The study was published online today in the journal Nature. Similar results from other Harvard researchers were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The findings may pose a challenge to previous research that suggested reprogrammed adult body cells may be substituted for embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to grow into all tissue types in the body. Researchers are already developing ways to get around the limits identified in today’s study, so the IPS cells may still be used to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease or diabetes.

Read Full Story