Creating stem cells without gene editing
Published March 17, 2017 This content is archived.
An article on Front Line Genomics reports on UB research that showed that adult skin cells can be converted into neural crest cells, a type of stem cell, without any genetic modification, and that these stem cells can yield other cells that are present in the spinal cord and the brain.
The article quotes Stelios Andreadis, professor and chair of chemical and biological engineering, who said, “In medical applications this has tremendous potential because you can always get a skin biopsy. We can grow the cells to large numbers and reprogram them, without genetic modification. So, autologous cells derived from the patient can be used to treat devastating neurogenic diseases that are currently hampered by the lack of easily accessible cell sources.”
