Lowering the barrier to stem cell therapies
/Team develops iPS cells with less chance of being rejected
Researchers developed a way to produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells with a lower risk of rejection, overcoming a major obstacle to the clinical application of regenerative medicine.
A team headed by Akitsu Hotta, a junior associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), used genome editing technology to change the structure of genes to create safer iPS cells. The findings were published in the U.S. scientific journal Cell Stem Cell on March 8.
Although using donor blood of third-party individuals results in cheaper and faster iPS cell production, the procedure poses a higher risk of immune rejection after transplantation.
