A major advance in regenerative medicine has recently been announced. A new technique, which can convert adult skin cells into embryonic form, has been successfully performed on interbred mice by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. The technique, if adaptable to human cells could allow new heart, liver, or kidney cells to be regenerated from simple skin cells. This tissue could potentially replace organ tissue that has been damaged due to disease. As this tissue would be formed from the patient’s own skin cells, it would not be subject to rejection by the patient’s immune system.

The advantage of using embryonic stem cells in cloning research, organ transplantation, and in finding cures for disease, is that these cells are basically “unprogrammed.” This means that the stem cell has not yet determined what it will grow to become so, in theory at least, scientists can manipulate them into becoming anything that they are programmed to be.

Two teams of scientists working independently announced that they had successfully replicated the biological abilities of the embryonic stem cell using only skin cells.