Make any cell into a stem cell

At last, a scientist confirms what I’ve believed for quite some time: the future of stem cell therapy will involve using the patient’s own cells.

MonstersandCritics.com, a website that often deals in cutting edge bioethics and scientific and medical research, gives an early report on an upcoming article covering the work of Stephen Davies, a professor of neurology at Baylor University in Houston, Texas. Dr. Davies is using rats in his research, not humans. He has developed a treatment using embryonic stem cells that make astrocytes to greatly decrease scarring in the rats when they are given a spinal cord injury.

Dr. Wise Young, a neuroscientist whose specialty is treating spinal cord injury and who is currently investigating umbilical cord stem cells, discusses the problems with the ethics of using embryonic cells.

Even so, this could be a short-term dilemma: Young said he is confident that it won`t be long before scientists can make any cell into a stem cell.

‘A stem cell is just a cell expressing certain genes, and there`s nothing more mysterious than that. We just have to know what the genes are,’ he said.