German researchers turn skin cells into stem cells

• German medical researchers have cured serious liver disease in mice using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in an important first that shows promise for use in people with liver metabolism ailments.
• The researchers took skin cells from the mice, returned them to an embryonic state and subsequently corrected a gene defect in the cells. The cells were then used to create healthy mice.
• "For the first time, a living organism has been cured of an illness using iPS cells repaired using genetic methods," researcher Tobias Cantz told the German Press Agency dpa
• They noted that research using iPS cells is broadly seen as ethically unproblematic, as embryos are not needed to provide a source for them.
• Using a method known as tetraploid embryo complementation, the researchers were able to produce healthy mice from the treated iPS cells.
• According to the Max Planck Institute, the long—term aim of the research is to take cells from patients, reverse them into iPS cells in the laboratory, correct them genetically and ultimately to induce them into the patient to effect a cure.
• The cells acquired in this way would not suffer the kind of rejection from the body that usually causes problems with donated tissue.