About our Research
An understanding of the development and differentiation of pluripotent stem cells is the essence of regenerative biology. Our lab’s breakthrough discovery in 1998 describing the successful isolation of human embryonic stem cells represented the beginning of a new era of research. Now that we’ve achieved the ability to culture human embryonic stem cells in the lab indefinitely, we can continue to study their developmental pathways and manipulate their powerful pluripotent capabilities to develop into any kind of cell in the human body.
By coaxing, directing and tweaking human stem cells we intend to achieve the goal of regenerative biology, which is to create physiologically stable, safe and functional cells to repair or replace diseased cells in humans. It has been our quest to understand and identify the genomics of the human embryonic stem cell – which genes are turned on and off when cells are pluripotent, versus when they differentiated.
Our driving interest in understanding the developmental pathway of human stem cells has more recently brought us beyond the critical divide of using discarded embryonic stem cells. With our ability to create embryonic-like stem cells from adult skin cells, we have come closer to realizing the concept of using differentiated human adult cells to cure human disease.
Our lab’s success in determining those very genes that can change a cell’s fate from the undifferentiated state to a highly specialized kind of cell with specific functions is what led us to the successful creation and culture of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells completely devoid of viral vectors and exogenous genetic material. By genetically reprogramming skin cells to an embryonic state using a plasmid rather than a virus, we have eliminated a key safety concern about the potential use of iPS cells in therapeutic settings. This research breakthrough should certainly bring regenerative and personalized medicine a step closer to reality.
