More Developments in Non-Embryonic Stem Cells.

These developments are huge, yet they will likely be ignored by the mainstream media, unlike the minor developments in embryonic stem cell research.

The first development is the creation of non-embryonic stem cells without the use of viral introgression, a technique that can cause DNA damage. This process, discovered by Mount Sinai’s Dr. Nagy and to be published in Nature, involves a “wrapping” technique instead of the virus.

“Dr. Nagy discovered a new method to create pluripotent stem cells (cells that can develop into most other cell types) without disrupting healthy genes. Dr. Nagy's method uses a novel wrapping procedure to deliver specific genes to reprogram cells into stem cells. Previous approaches required the use of viruses to deliver the required genes, a method that carries the risk of damaging the DNA. Dr. Nagy's method does not require viruses, and so overcomes a major hurdle for the future of safe, personalized stem cell therapies in humans.”

“"This research is a huge step forward on the path to new stem cell-based therapies and indicates that researchers at the Lunenfeld are at the leading edge of regenerative medicine," said Dr. Jim Woodgett, Director of Research for the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital.”

In a separate development, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a successful scaffolding technique for the possibility of growing organs. This technique is shown on rats, and has yet to be performed on human tissue. The system uses “multipotent” stem cells which are differentiated from more specific and targeted cell areas for use with specific organs being grown in the “bioscaffold”.

"Efforts to use tissue engineering to generate whole organs have largely failed," said Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, associate professor of surgery, "primarily due to the lack of available blood vessels. Now we've essentially hijacked an existing structure to overcome this problem." The key, the researchers discovered, is to keep the tissue adequately supplied with oxygen and nutrients while outside of the body. “

By keeping a steady flow of blood and nutrients to the bioscaffold the researchers kept the growth going for 28 days, while unnourished counterparts died within 6 hours.

"This is an incredible opportunity to bulk-deliver cells that don't just die," said Gurtner. "Conceivably, we could use this technique at least to supply the synthetic function of an organ by stimulating the cells to form insulin-producing pancreas cells or albumin-producing liver cells."

Non-embryonic stem cells, or “induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”, (iPSC’s) are the wave of the future, not embryonic stem cells.