That single
cell contains all the genetic information needed to develop into a
human, and passes identical copies of that information to each new
cell as it divides into the many
diverse types of
cells that make up a complex organism like a
human being.
In the several years since those first reports, new advances in the derivation of hiPSCs from various tissue sources (including those from
human patients) and using
diverse reprogramming techniques, and in their use as a pluripotent
cell source in the induced differentiation of a wide array of somatic
cell types, have appeared with almost startling rapidity.