Recent advances with direct cell conversion

Biochemist and author Dr. David Prentice wrote about several recent studies involving direct reprogramming of regular cells, skipping the need to create or grow stem cells to obtain the cell types needed for potential treatments.

A passel of scientific papers have recently reported the direct conversion of skin cells to nerve cells, without going through an intervening stem cell step.

No fewer than seven studies published in the last three months have shown different methods for directly converting ordinary skin cells into types of nerve cells......

The even newer technique of direct conversion skips the stem cell intermediary, directly transforming one specialized cell type into another specialized cell type.

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