“As the discoveries of modern science create tremendous hope, they also lay vast ethical mine fields.”
- President George W. Bush, Jr.
The stem cell debate is a vast entanglement of faith, ethics, science, human life and misunderstanding. On one hand, stem cells can literally regenerate any tissue in the body and potentially cure tragic and complicated diseases. One the other hand, historically, the only way to get embryonic stem cells was by harvesting embryos – to some, saving a life by taking a life. People have been trying to untie this Gordian knot for decades until two scientists managed to cut right through.
Dr. Shinya Yamanaka and Dr. John Thompson were neck-and-neck in the race to discover how to “reprogram” normal adult cells into pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent simply means that under the right conditions, a stem cell is capable of turning into any kind of cell. In 2006, Dr. Yamanaka published a protocol for reprogramming mouse stem cells. Dr. Thompson followed up a month later. By 2007, they had figured out which genetic “switches” to “flip” and could make induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells out of skin tissue.
Rather than sacrificing human derived embryonic cells in the name of science, the only casualty is a biopsy of human skin. On average, you’ll shed about one and half pounds of skin cells this year – enough to fill two 12oz cans of Coca-Cola. These biopsied cells are placed in a genetic “bath”, causing them to differentiate (turn into a more specific type) of tissues – cornea, heart, skin, etc.
The first step in developing new regenerative therapies is making sure that IPS cells actually work like embryonic stem cells. We are an important component in supporting this research. Bruce Conklin, a colleague of Dr. Yamanaka and a leading expert on IPS cells, has joined Shrink to guide our efforts. One of our products, StemDisc™, allows researchers to “clump” IPS cells together to control differentiation – 96,000 outcomes (or experiments) at a time. Using Shrink’s CellAlign™ product as a growth substrate can assist stem cells to differentiate into living, beating heart tissue. Both can be used to help verify the properties of IPS cells, test cutting-edge, individualized therapies.
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