On 28 March, a Japanese man in his 60s became the first person to receive cells derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells donated by another person.
The surgery is expected to set the path for more applications of iPS-cell technology, which offers the versatility of embryonic stem cells without their ethical taint.
[In the procedure], performed on a man from the Hyogo prefecture of Japan, skin cells from an anonymous donor were reprogrammed into iPS cells and then turned into a type of retinal cell, which was in turn transplanted onto the retina of the patient, who has age-related macular degeneration. Physicians hope that the cells will stop the progression of the disease, which can lead to blindness.…
At a press conference after the procedure, [Masayo Takahashi, an ophthalmologist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, who devised the iPS cell protocol deployed in [the March 28 transplant] said that the surgery had gone well, but that success cannot be declared without monitoring the fate of the introduced cells. She plans to make no further announcements about patient progress until all five procedures are finished.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Japanese man is first to receive ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells from another person
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