Scientists in Japan have created a new type of stem cell by manipulating regular cells from mice, opening doors for the medical world to conduct less controversial stem cell research, NBC News reported Wednesday.
"It is also exciting to think about the new possibilities this finding offers, not only in areas like regenerative medicine but also perhaps in the study of senescence and cancer as well," Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, who led the research, told NBC News.
Pluripotent stem cells are blank cells that have the ability to grow into any type of cell, such as blood cells or skin cells.
Obokata and his researchers discovered they could create pluripotent stem cells by pouring acid on normal cells from baby mice. Scientists named the new stem cells stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency cells, or STAP cells, NBC News reported.
Because stem cells are extracted from embryos, opponents slam the practice as tantamount to terminating life. Scientists previously invented a way to get stem cells by creating an embryo using extracted cells, called therapeutic cloning. However the process is extremely difficult in humans, NBC News reported.
Yet the recent discovery is lauded as groundbreaking.
"If reproducible in humans, this will be a paradigm changer," Dr. Robert Lanza from Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts told NBC News. "It also tells us that normal body cells have an amazing latent capacity, and raises the question 'what else can our body's cells do under stress?'
But Lanza acknowledged there is a possibility the experiment won't work on human cells.
"That being said, there are a lot of things that work in mice that don't work in humans," NBC News reported.
Another issue is that if the process does work in humans, it could lead to experiments in human cloning.
"This research cold have serious ethical ramifications," Lanza told NBC News.
