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Originally Posted by pgardn
Long way to go on this.
The stem cells made by using no fetal tissue (skin connective cells called fibroblasts which I worked 3 years with, only in chickens) dont necessarily give rise to organs they might want to clone. It is exciting that they can use nonembryonic cells to make what behave like stem cells early on, but later, when the important differentiation occurs... not even close.
Im going to make a prediction. This is going to be very difficult. I think these genes they put in to cause these cells to revert to the stem cell stage do not change already altered crucial genes important in producing, for example, a fully functional liver. I believe that as cells differentiate, some very significant changes occur in the genome that will be very difficult to fix. Lots of splicing and dicing goes on. Very difficult stuff.
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Pgardn,
You may be entirely correct with your prediction. There's a long way to go
with producing replacement organs (such as a liver as you suggest). We can discuss matrix and regeneration techniques some other time.
I think that the use of four protien transcriptors using retroviruses that express as pluripotent stem cells (as the Nature article states) and the transfer of iPS DNA to progeny are quite interesting.
Watson was recently given his personal genome and within a short time, all of us will have access to our own for a very modest price (1K).
I agree with you that this is "difficult", but not out of reach.
DTS