<http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999459> Quick change Adult skin cells are turned into heart cells without creating embryos, claim scientists
Adult skin cells have been transformed into beating heart cells without creating embryos, US scientists claim.
They say they took adult skin cells from cattle, 'reverted' them into stem cells and then transformed them into heart cells.
Previously scientists have isolated stem cells from embryos and coaxed them into specific tissues. They have also taken partly developed cells from one tissue and converted them into different tissue. But this is the first time a fully differentiated adult cell has been reverted and reprogrammed.
"We were very pleased, because we didn't expect it," says Alan Coleman, director of research at PPL in the UK. Scientists at PPL Therapeutics in Blacksburg, Virginia carried out the new research.
The breakthrough raises the possibility of producing multipotent stem cells for treating diseases such as heart disease or diabetes without the need to create an embryonic clone of the patient. So-called therapeutic cloning has been attacked by anti-abortion campaigners.
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