An alternative way to make stem cells could open a window on human disease.
Reprogrammed: Scientists have genetically modified skin cells so that they behave like embryonic stem cells, which can develop into virtually every tissue type in the body.
Credit: Junying Yu/University of Wisconsin-Madison
On the second floor of a building in one of South San Francisco's numerous business parks, a new biotech company has set up shop. The walls sport a fresh coat of white paint, and the bench tops are shiny and bare. The tile floors are still glossy, and an expensive new cell-sorting machine sits, untouched, on the loading dock downstairs.
The building's new inhabitant, iZumi Bio, is pursuing a technology as new and full of promise as the lab itself--a technology that's moving faster than the company can fill its empty space. It revolves around induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells: adult cells genetically reprogrammed to act like embryonic stem cells, which can turn into just about any type of cell in the human body.
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