
Groundbreaking discovery could pave way for use of stem cells in medicine - kshatrea
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Groundbreaking-discovery-could-pave-way-for-routine-use-of-stem-cells-in-medicine/articleshow/29559517.cms
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daemonk
I am a bioinformatician working on regeneration. Two interesting observations
here aside from the primary observation that stem cells can be made from
stress:

\- This only worked with differentiated cells from newly born animals. It
didn't work with adults. They should investigate further to see what kind of
epigenetic changes occurred throughout the lifetime of the animal to inhibit
this stress response. This reminds me a bit of the aneurogenic limb
experiments in salamanders. Is this a difference between development and
regeneration?

\- The stem cells can make placental tissue. How did they determine this? Are
they suggesting these cells are essentially totipotent?

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superfx
In many ways what's most interesting about this from a biological standpoint
is that it explains why stem cells have been found all over the body in
previous experiments. This "stress-induced" pluripotency suggests a general
mechanism that the body uses to deal with stress. In effect cells are made
with the intrinsic capability to respond to injury, by simply turning into
stem cells.

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mrfusion
So our bodies might produce a low PH environment for 25 minutes in response to
stress?

(I don't mean that to sound sarcastic but I couldn't seem to get the phrasing
right)

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fabian2k
From a short glance at the paper it seems that they don't know yet what the
mechanism is that triggers the conversion. It might be that it is not
triggered specifically by low pH, but by some downstream mechanism that can
also be triggered by other kinds of stress.

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mrfusion
Offtopic: Just curious why this submission is beating out mine:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7143500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7143500)

Is BBC frowned on, maybe?

~~~
znowi
There's an experimental algorithm on HN that determines how much is a user
concerned with karma. Apparently, your karmic anxiety is more prominent than
the competition. Hence, the penalty.

~~~
mrfusion
I'll admit to having "karmic anxiety", actually.

I'm trying to get to 500 points so I can have a "seat at the table" so to
speak. (I think that's when you get a lot of new voting privileges and such?)

~~~
nilsbunger
Here's a vote to help you with your karmic anxiety. Although are you sure when
you hit 500 you won't find a new karmic anxiety threshold? :)

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jds375
Not only is this groundbreaking with respect to the potential ease of
harvesting stem cells, it could also likely change the 'debate' on stem cells.
If all we need to harvest them is some ordinary cells and acid, then the whole
'embryo' debate should no longer be an obstacle.

~~~
JunkDNA
As another poster says, there was not ever a substantive "debate" with regard
to ordinary stem cells, only ones derived from fetal tissues and discarded
fertilized embryos from IVF.

One of the things about the embryonic stem cell debate I always found
maddening is that none of the proponents of using them had a solid answer to
overcoming immune rejection problem. If you're going to make new organs from
someone else's tissue, you have a lot of heavy lifting to do to make sure
those things don't cause the recipient to attack the cells/tissues that you've
transplanted. This is a _massive_ problem with organ transplants generally,
and I see no reason why stem cells wouldn't be in the same category (though
I'd love to know if my knowledge is outdated/wrong).

Even assuming that there are ways to get around the immune system (e.g. taking
anti-rejection meds). It is likely far easier and safer to work with
pluripotent cells from an adult who is also both the donor and recipient. Even
if there's a genetic defect that needs to be "patched" prior to re-
implantation, that is _far_ easier than trying to make a foreign cell look
like it's from you or being on meds for the rest of your life so your body
doesn't attack that new liver.

~~~
zspade
Two words, Therapeutic Cloning. From the center for Bioethics and Human
Dignity([http://cbhd.org/stem-cell-research/overview](http://cbhd.org/stem-
cell-research/overview)):

6\. What is the relationship between embryonic stem cell research and
"therapeutic" cloning?

Another potential obstacle encountered by researchers engaging in embryonic
stem cell research is the possibility that embryonic stem cells would not be
immunologically compatible with patients and would therefore be “rejected,”
much like a non-compatible kidney would be rejected. A proposed solution to
this problem is to create an embryonic clone of a patient and subsequently
destroy the clone in order to harvest his or her stem cells. Cloning for this
purpose has been termed “therapeutic” cloning—despite the fact that the
subject of the research—the clone—is not healed but killed.

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charlieflowers
Did I read it correctly -- that they actually transformed blood cells into an
entire mouse _fetus_??

~~~
refurb
Yeah, that's basically what they did. They took the stem cells they created
and put them in a blastocyst (a very early form of a fertilized egg) and a
mouse developed.

It's actually a pretty impressive discovery. They took a spleen sample,
separated out the lymphocytes and exposed them to a pH of 5.7 for 25 min out
comes a stem cell!

~~~
dfjorque
Here's a video of the mouse embryo, with a beating heart and all:
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2014/jan/29/mouse-e...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2014/jan/29/mouse-
embryo-beating-heart-stap-cells-video)

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yeureka
Apparently the scientist responsible for this discovery is a 30 year old
Japanese woman that struggled for 5 years to convince her colleagues that she
could be right.

She was told more than once that what she was proposing was wrong and that she
should give up.

A young Japanese woman going against the status quo in Japan for 5 years is a
very hard thing to do.

I congratulate her courage - I might benefit from it one day.

~~~
zackmorris
This might be a totally stupid question but I couldn't find the answer on the
web and all the other comments are from yesterday. But are conditions in the
womb acidic? I'm just wondering, that if DNA works at all like computer code,
then maybe cells have programming to work a certain way in certain conditions
and maybe it's not so much that a cell undergoes a permanent change when it
matures but that the old programming just doesn't run anymore?

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mark-r
Any reason to believe this is real? It seems slightly impossible, like cold
fusion.

~~~
fabian2k
It is published in a very high profile journal, and it looks to be rather easy
to replicate these experiments. I would guess that everybody in that field is
setting up similar experiments right now.

Trying to fake this result would be rather stupid, it would be almost
inevitable to be caught. That doesn't prove this is not fake, but I expect
that we'll know reasonably soon how well this can be reproduced in other labs.

~~~
mark-r
Thanks for taking my comment seriously. The lack of technical detail combined
with the simplicity of the method just set off my BS detector. "Miracle cures
just around the corner" is a constant distraction. Didn't notice that it was
being published in Nature.

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riggins
yes pls ... turn my skin into knee cartilage.

