US and Japanese scientists managed to create embryonic stem cells from mouse skin cells through some genetic trickery:
"It's pretty phenomenal," Michael Rudnicki, scientific director of Canada's Stem Cell Network and director of molecular medicine at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, said in an interview.
The skin cells reverted to embryonic stem cells, or a state that the scientists describe as nearly identical to it, after they added four genes to the skin cells. The genes triggered a process that made the cells become "pluripotent" and capable of turning into any type of cell found in the body, which is the hallmark of embryonic stem cells and what makes them so alluring.
"This is very exciting scientifically because these four genes can reprogram any cell, it would seem, to become an embryonic stem cell," says Rudnicki. The technique presents a possible "work around" that could eliminate the need to use embryos to generate cells for regenerative medicine, he says.