Cellular reprogramming refers to the process of changing a cell's identity or function. It involves altering the genetic instructions within the cell, allowing it to transform into a different type of cell. It's like giving a cell a new job by rewriting its instructions. This technique has great potential for medical research and treatments, as it can be used to create new cells that can replace damaged or diseased ones in the body.
Full definition
The new study, published in Nature Communications, also presents significant advancements
in cellular reprogramming technology, which will allow scientists to efficiently scale up pancreatic cell production and manufacture trillions of the target cells in a step-wise, controlled manner.
Melton is also a pioneer in
direct cellular reprogramming research — the transformation of one type of adult cell into another, without first going through a stem cell state.
The Ogawa - Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize recognizes individuals whose original translational research has advanced
cellular reprogramming technology for regenerative medicine.
In a process
called cellular reprogramming, researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have taken mature blood cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and reprogrammed them back into iPSCs to study the genetic origins of this rare blood cancer.
«Eventually you have to replace those genes with small molecules, with proteins, with whatever,» says Ding, who is working on
cellular reprogramming methods that use small molecules, rather than viruses.
All previous work
on cellular reprogramming required adding external genes to the cells, making this accomplishment an unprecedented feat.
A
new cellular reprogramming method has been revealed that transforms human skin cells into liver cells that are virtually indistinguishable from the cells that make up native liver tissue.
Sergiu P. Pasca, 36, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, uses models of the human brain — created
through cellular reprogramming technology — to explore the biological underpinnings of brain diseases like autism.
Deepak Srivastava, MD, a pediatric cardiologist and director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, pioneered this type of cardiac
cellular reprogramming research.
Ultimately, the center's goal is to control these circuits through therapeutic targeting in a variety of biological systems,
including cellular reprogramming, neuroscience, cancer, and infectious disease.
By comparing the gene expression patterns of normal beta cells and insulin - producing cells derived from alpha cells, the researchers confirmed nearly
complete cellular reprogramming.
With the goal of identifying chromatin regulators that can
promote cellular reprogramming, the team performed an siRNA screen, in which the expression of over 1000 genes was impaired to see how the appearance of 2CLCs was affected.
«As both a physician and a scientist, Dr. Takahashi embodies the ideal recipient because her work
brings cellular reprogramming to patients,» says Gladstone president R. Sanders Williams, MD. «Mr. Ogawa's visionary support of translational stem cell research will help encourage and accelerate the progression of the field.»
Gladstone scientists are
exploring cellular reprogramming — turning one type of adult cell into another — in the heart as a way to regenerate muscle cells in the hopes of treating, and ultimately curing, heart failure.
The excitement
surrounding cellular reprogramming and the possibility of federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (ESC) research in the US could be overshadowing another promising therapeutic source of stem cells: those derived via parthenogenesis, some researchers say.
Kazutoshi Takahashi (left) and Tim Rand (right), from Shinya Yamanaka's laboratory, helped answer lingering questions
about cellular reprogramming.
In recent years, the tools available for life science researchers have advanced at spectacular speed, and Gladstone pioneered several methods —
consider cellular reprogramming and bioinformatics — that transcend any single disease.
Her winning essay in Science, «Hope for the Brokenhearted,» explains
how cellular reprogramming has greatly enhanced the study of stem cells and regenerative medicine.
And recent research
achieved cellular reprogramming through purely chemical means, opening the door to one day being able to regrow lost cells with a pill.
Using a process
called cellular reprogramming, the researchers take a patient's skin cells, convert them into so - called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which can differentiate into all the cells within the human body.
«This study represents the first successful creation of human insulin - producing pancreatic beta cells using a
direct cellular reprogramming method,» says first author Saiyong Zhu, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease.
Writing in the latest issue of the journal Nature, researchers in the laboratories of Gladstone Senior Investigator Sheng Ding, PhD, and UCSF Associate Professor Holger Willenbring, MD, PhD, reveal a
new cellular reprogramming method that transforms human skin cells into liver cells that are virtually indistinguishable from the cells that make up native liver tissue.
He investigated whether turning on Oct4, a gene suspected of being involved
in cellular reprogramming, could reprogram adult cells back into their embryonic state.
Ultimately, the center's goal will be to control these circuits through therapeutic targeting in a variety of biological systems,
including cellular reprogramming, neuroscience, cancer, and infectious disease.
Her goal is to understand the molecular basis of how cells become different kinds of heart cells and apply this knowledge to improve the efficiency and clinical applicability
of cellular reprogramming in heart disease.
Tuesday, September 27 10:45 - 11:15 am — Kazutoshi Takahashi does a deep dive
on cellular reprogramming, uncovering the molecular mechanisms behind pluripotency.
When I saw the spectrum of research at Gladstone —
cellular reprogramming technologies, developmental biology, chemical biology, genome editing — that was happening in all these top - notch labs, I felt that it was really complementary to what we were doing and that there were immediate opportunities for synergies and collaborations.
The gene signature identified by Hancock and his colleagues relates to a special type of immune suppression called
cellular reprogramming and suggests that treating inflammation in sepsis is a bad idea.
Sheng Ding, PhD, a senior investigator in the Roddenberry Stem Cell Center at Gladstone and co-senior author on the study, adds, «This new
cellular reprogramming and expansion paradigm is more sustainable and scalable than previous methods.
The new study explains many important activities involved in
cellular reprogramming, and debunks certain leading theories about the role of MYC in this process.
In one promising approach,
cellular reprogramming, stem cells can be generated by fusing adult skin cells with embryonic stem cells from existing cell lines.
Taken together, these findings support the notion that
cellular reprogramming may become a way of replacing degenerated neurons in the adult brain.
In the new study, published in Cell Reports, scientists in the laboratory of Gladstone Senior Investigator Sheng Ding, PhD, used
cellular reprogramming to convert muscle precursor cells and white fat cells into brown fat cells.
However, it is at least one of the genes responsible for the mechanism of
cellular reprogramming, a phenomenon that can turn one cell type into another, which is key to the making of stem cells.
Dr Luca Peruzzotti - Jametti, the first author of the study and a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellow, says: «We made this discovery by bringing together researchers from diverse fields including regenerative medicine, cancer, mitochondrial biology, inflammation and stroke and
cellular reprogramming.