By DPA
Washington : Teams of US and Japanese researchers said they had reprogrammed human skin cells to function like embryonic stem cells, a development that could alleviate ethical concerns about research on the promising cells.
The Japanese team led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and the US team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led by Junying Yu and James Thomson separately inserted genes into cells derived from skin to create cells that share features with those from human embryos.
Embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into any type of cell and have been lauded for their potential in research and cures for diseases. But because they had only been derived by destroying human embryos they have raised ethical concerns. Opponents have said it is equivalent to taking a human life.
“The induced cells do all the things embryonic stem cells do,” said Thomson, the man who first isolated stem cells from embryos. “It’s going to completely change the field.”
However, the researchers said more study is needed to determine just how closely related the cells are to stem cells and how they can be used in research and therapy.
They stressed that their studies published in the journals Cell and Science have the potential to circumvent the long-standing ethical concerns because no human embryo is involved.
US President George W. Bush, who has twice vetoed bills that would have expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research, welcomed the developments.
“The president believes medical problems can be solved without compromising either the high aims of science or the sanctity of human life,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement Tuesday.
Groups that have spoken out against the destruction of embryos in stem cell research also praised the scientists’ work.
“This demonstrates what pro-lifers have been saying since the beginning, it is never necessary to compromise ethics by destroying life in order to achieve scientific aims,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative group in Washington.
In 2001 Bush limited US federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research to about 20 lines of stem cells that existed at the time. Scientists had decried the move as hampering potentially life saving research, but efforts by Congress to expand funding for the research have been shot down by the president.
Among other benefits, researchers lauded the breakthrough’s perceived ability to create stem cells from patients that would not pose a threat of rejection when used for therapy, and the potential the development has for more easily creating stem cell lines in less sophisticated laboratories.
“We should now be able to generate patient and disease-specific cells (induced pluripotent stem cells similar to embryonic stem cells), and then make various cells, such as cardiac cells, liver cells and neural cells,” Yamanaka said.
“These cells should be extremely useful in understanding disease mechanisms and screening effective and safe drugs. If we can overcome safety issues, we may be able to use human iPS cells in cell transplantation therapies.”
Yamanaka last year developed the procedure in mice, essentially turning the animals’ skin cells into embryonic stem cells that could develop into any types of cell in its body and were even capable of creating a new mouse.
Among the concerns to be overcome before the technique could be used for practical purposes is the potential of developing cancer, as one of the genes used by the Japanese team is known to trigger the disease.