Stable pluripotent stem cell production

September 13, 2014 7:05 PM

"Scientists reset human stem cells to earliest developmental state" The paper, published in Cell, is available under a CC-3.0 license. [See: earlier Mefi post]

"The process of generating stem cells in the lab is much easier to control in mouse cells, which can be frozen in a state of naïve pluripotency using a protein called LIF. Human cells are not as responsive to LIF, so they must be controlled in a different way that involves switching key genes on and off. For this reason scientists have been unable to generate human pluripotent cells that are as primitive or as consistent as mouse embryonic stem cells.

The researchers overcame this problem by introducing two genes – NANOG and KLF2 – causing the network of genes that control the cell to reboot and induce the naïve pluripotent state. Importantly, the introduced genes only need to be present for a short time. Then, like other stem cells, reset cells can self-renew indefinitely to produce large numbers, are stable and can differentiate into other cell types, including nerve and heart cells. - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-reset-human-stem-cells-to-earliest-developmental-state."

No question, it's still very very early days on this.

posted by peacay (18 comments total)

I want to be all "FUCKYEAHNEWPANCREAS!!!", but I suspect it'll be 'ten years away' for the next thirty years.

Still, maybe near immortality is around the corner too.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:40 PM on September 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, but it will forever remain mysteriously expensive and/or a well-kept secret known only to the equally well-heeled and -connected, thus guaranteeing that only the wealthiest of our masters get to live forever.

(A considerable amount of SF has been written on precisely this topic, going all the way back to Randall Garrett's excellent 1954 story "The Hunting Lodge".)
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:52 PM on September 13, 2014

Say what you will about capitalism, one of its virtues is that you can't keep secrets like that for long.
posted by the jam at 9:07 PM on September 13, 2014

Say what you will about capitalism, one of its virtues is that you can't keep secrets like that for long.

Dude, we don't even know how they get the caramel into the Caramilk bar.
posted by bicyclefish at 9:24 PM on September 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

True, but the Confectionary Elite could have kept all the Caramilk bars to themselves to eat luxuriously while lounging on their yachts. Instead, they realized it's much more fun to sell as many Caramilk bars as absolutely possible to card-carrying Illuminati members and common people alike.
posted by the jam at 9:35 PM on September 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I welcome our Caramilk-eatingohfuckit ...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:51 PM on September 13, 2014

BrotherCaine: "I want to be all "FUCKYEAHNEWPANCREAS!!!", but I suspect it'll be 'ten years away' for the next thirty years."

For us little folks, sure (although I suspect it will always be too expensive for the unwashed masses). For the Koch brothers and Dick Cheney, etc. I suspect they already have it. I mean how the hell else do you explain Cheney lasting this long? Once you've answered that, let's talk Kissinger. It's disgusting. There is no god.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 10:02 PM on September 13, 2014

All advanced technology requires debugging, InsertNiftyNameHere. I'd imagine the doctors treating Cheney and Kissinger do know more than your doctor though, if only by virtue of being famous enough that folks doing the development tell them personally.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:23 PM on September 13, 2014

KLF2 is gonna rock ya
'cause you have to
move to the flow of a pluripotent stem cell
NANOG mixed in
I'm gonna inject this
hard
and you can regrow it
down with the research crew
talking 'bout the Mu Mu
Adenine Guanine Cytosine Thymine
Got to teach and everything you learn
will point to the fact that time is eternal
posted by five fresh fish at 12:33 AM on September 14, 2014 [12 favorites]

jeffburdges: Someone should have cced Michael Jackson on that memo.
posted by lon_star at 1:05 AM on September 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

While this sounds exciting, is there a GeneticsMatt who can decode all this, a la physicsmatt?
posted by marienbad at 2:09 AM on September 14, 2014

Also, I am now listening to the KLF.
posted by marienbad at 2:09 AM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think I will wait a few years to be sure a retraction for fraud isn't printed. Stem cell research has had a problem with the pluripotency of its data.
posted by srboisvert at 4:03 AM on September 14, 2014 [6 favorites]

This is an exciting development but Haruko Obokata, one of the researchers behind a similar earlier paper, was found guilty of scientific misconduct for falsifying and fabricating her data in April. Obokata later retracted her paper. Sadly, Obokata's mentor and supervisor, Yoshiki Sasai, the deputy director of Riken's Center for Developmental Biology, committed suicide in the aftermath.

Cool stuff and it'd be rad if it pans out. Before getting too excited, lets see if someone can reproduce the data.
posted by kat518 at 7:00 AM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, but it will forever remain mysteriously expensive and/or a well-kept secret known only to the equally well-heeled and -connected, thus guaranteeing that only the wealthiest of our masters get to live forever.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
posted by IndigoJones at 7:35 AM on September 14, 2014

Since we're talking about Dick Cheney and advanced, almost supernatural medical procedures, did you know he has no pulse.
posted by maxsparber at 8:03 AM on September 14, 2014

I've read the full paper and I expect it to be fully reproducible - other papers on human naive stem cells have been published (sorry, it's behind a paywall) and, AFAIK, they've all been reproducible.

The key issue with getting transplantable tissue from stem cells is that the genes that are being tweaked in order to generate stem cells from somatic cells are the same ones that are involved in cell immortality (i.e. cancer). After differentiation into terminal lineages, those genes are typically silenced, but if those genes remain "on" even in one cell, it can be disastrous. Plus all the regulatory and GMP hoops that must be jumped in addition to that - transplantable stem cell products are probably still awhile away.

But as soon as some big pharmaceuticals figure that bit out, the technology to grow replacement tissue from your own cells is pretty much here already.
posted by cosmic_shoals at 12:01 PM on September 14, 2014

Bring on the teratomas....mwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
posted by SinAesthetic at 6:17 PM on September 14, 2014