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Growing custom made, functioning organs in a laboratory will be regenerative medicine's defining moment. In 2014, a step toward this goal will be made when the first organ is grown from cloned human embryonic stem cells.
Patients in need of a new windpipe can receive a plastic implant coated with mesenchymal stem cells -- a type of adult stem cell -- extracted from their bone marrow. Researchers are also working on creating bladders using similar techniques. Also, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to mimic an embryonic stem-cell-like state -- have been used to create miniature human livers.
But these techniques also have their drawbacks. Adult stem cells are not pluripotent -- they cannot differentiate into any type of cell or tissue. It is unlikely that they alone could be used to create complex organs, such as the heart. And iPSCs may not resemble embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in terms of gene expression.
An alternative approach is the cloning of human embryonic stem cells via a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). A nucleus is removed from a body cell and placed into a donated egg whose nucleus has been removed, creating a clone of the original cell. Dolly the sheep and other animals were cloned in this way.
When human cloning is cracked it will enable the harvesting of embryonic stem cells for therapeutic cloning of organs.
In May, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University announced that they had derived human ESCs using SCNT.
Their magic ingredient? Caffeine.
Alex B Berezow is the founding editor of RealClearScience and co-wrote Science Left Behind (PublicAffairs)
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
