It is great to see that stem cell research has made tremendous strides in 2011. Hamilton Thorne applauds our customer, the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), for being named Time Magazine’s #1 Medical Breakthrough for 2011.
Here is an excerpt from the NYSCF’s press release, ” TIME magazine has designated research conducted in the laboratory of the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) as the #1 Medical Breakthrough of the year.
TIME cited research led by NYSCF scientists Dieter Egli and Scott Noggle in which adult skin cells from patients with Type 1 diabetes were reprogrammed to the pluripotent state by combining the cells with unfertilized donor oocytes. The scientists then succeeded in differentiating the pluripotent cells into other cell types in the body, including insulin-producing beta cells that are lacking in persons with Type 1 diabetes.
The discovery has implications for treatments of many other diseases besides diabetes, since the cells Egli and Noggle created contain the patient’s own DNA and would resist rejection by the patient’s immune system if transplanted as part of cell replacement therapy. NYSCF scientists are currently conducting further research needed to overcome a remaining obstacle before the cells can be considered for treatment purposes.
In the magazine’s online article, TIME health and medical writer Alice Park writes: “The process is promising because it can potentially yield stem cells – which may one day treat diseases such as spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s – that not only match their donor, but also obviate the need for an embryo.”
To read the full press release, click here
With 2011 being such an exicting year, we look forward to seeing what our prestigious customers have in store for the research world in 2012.
