Major Breakthrough: 'Naïve' pluripotent human embryonic stem cells created

For years, researchers and patients have hoped that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) -- capable of forming nearly any cell type in the body -- could provide insight into numerous diseases perhaps even be used to treat them. Yet progress has been hampered by the inability to transfer research and tools from mouse ESC studies to their human counterparts, in part because human ESCs are "primed" and slightly less plastic than the mouse cells.

Now Thorold Theunissen, Benjamin Powell, and Haoyi Wang, who are scientists in the lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch, have discovered how to manipulate and maintain human ESCs in a "naïve" or base pluripotent state similar to that of mouse ESCs without the use of any reprogramming factors. Their work is described in this week's issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

This is a HUGE breakthrough. It is going greatly accelerate basic research lead times, along with vastly improving the accuracy of those results. I see monumental breakthroughs in our fundamental understanding of disease processes, which will lead to safely mitigating such processes. And if we can do that, then we can start slowing down and even eliminating the ravages of age related decline and associated disorders. But when it comes to science, I've always been an optimist. Unfortunately, science is more often than not, hampered by politics and religion.

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