ES Cells and iPS Cells: Potential for Personalized Medicine

Rudolf Jaenisch

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Department of Biology,
MIT, Cambridge

Abstract

One of the key issues raised by nuclear cloning is the question of genomic reprogramming, i.e. the mechanism of resetting the epigenetic modifications that are characteristics of the adult donor nucleus to ones that are appropriate for an embryonic cell. The mechanisms by which embryonic stem (ES) cells self-renew while maintaining the ability to differentiate into virtually all adult cell types are not well understood. Major progress has been achieved to understand the molecular circuitry of pluripotency and self-renewal. This information provides crucial insights into mechanisms by which pluripotent cells may be stimulated to differentiate into different cell types or by which somatic cells might be reprogrammed back to the pluripotent state by exposure of the somatic nucleus to the egg cytoplasm.
The recent demonstration of in vitro reprogramming using transduction of 4 transcription factors by Yamanaka and colleagues represents a major advance in the field. Major questions regarding the mechanism of in vitro reprogramming need to be understood and will be one focus of the talk. Also, our progress in using iPS cells for therapy and for the study of complex human will be summarized.