For the first time successfully created stem cells from human skin

US scientists have recently reported making human embryonic stem cells from skin cells using cloning techniques.

This is the first time that stem cell production has been recorded as a success, after a series of promising efforts in recent years.

The results of the study are published in the journal Cell.

Embryonic stem cells are the only cells that can divide themselves to create all other specialized cells in the human body, for a total of more than 200 types.

The infinite stem cell proliferation makes it possible to grasp this cell-generation technique.

Photo: industrytap.com

The mastery of stem cells that are particularly promising in the treatment of diseases so far is considered incurable, such as Parkinson's disease, sclerosis in the central nervous system, some diseases cardiovascular and spinal cord injuries.

The success of the team at Oregon Health and Science University (USA) followed a previous success in 2007, turning monkey skin cells into fetal stem cells.

The cloning technique has been used by researchers to do this, which is to use the skin cell nucleus, specifically in this case, the skin cell nucleus containing the DNA of an 8-month-old infant. age, to turn it into the eggs that volunteer women provide. These eggs create embryos, from which stem cells are extracted.

One advantage of this new technique is that no fertilized embryos will be used. Embryo fertilization, which means destroying the fetus, poses serious moral problems.

Since the first cloned Dolly rescued in England in 1996, researchers have used cloning techniques with about 20 species, such as goats and rabbits, but have never been successful in reality. experiment with monkeys or other primate species, because their biological replication mechanism is much more complex.

The latest step in cloning to create embryonic stem cells does not open the way for human cloning techniques.

According to the researchers, although this technique is used to clone stem cells (therapeutic cloning), in principle this method does not allow the creation of clones. people (ie cloning for reproductive purposes).