These iPS cells, like stem cells derived from embryos, can be turned into many different kinds of cells, and researchers believe they eventually could be used to regenerate tissue for organs and repair damage.
The protein is of particular importance in cells that rapidly reproduce, like cancer cells or malaria-infected cells.
Scientists are very excited by the announcement of these findings, that cells that look and act like stem cells can be created from skin cells (known in science as fibroblasts).
When the researchers prevented the cells from producing hamartin, they died just like other cells.
In addition to removing regulatory barriers, the Commission continues to push ahead on innovative spectrum solutions in addition to traditional auctions, including incentive auctions, government-commercial sharing, technology-based opportunities like small cells, and freeing up unlicensed spectrum for innovations like Wi-Fi.
ENGADGET: FCC chairman green-lights AT&T's use of WCS spectrum for LTE with proposed order
In that condition, the cells which line the oesophagus or stomach change their character and start to look like intestinal cells.
While cloning stem cells is a technical breakthrough, there's already a method of deriving embryonic-like stem cells that doesn't require the use of embryos at all: induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, said Dr. George Daley, who is director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston and an international expert in stem cells.
In November, we witnessed a landmark achievement when scientists discovered a way to reprogram adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells.
Indeed, the same objection also applies to stem cells that are extracted from embryos produced without nuclear transfer. (Usually these are surplus to requirements for in vitro fertilisation.) Both problems would go away if cells that behave like embryonic stem cells could be made without destroying embryos.
His conclusion is radical: Shift from oil to alternatives like fuel cells burning hydrogen.
And, also like fuel cells, that initial application may now be found in the specialised needs of space travel.
ECONOMIST: A more efficient way to make electricity in spacecraft
Neural networks are computer programs that, as their name suggests, behave rather like nerve cells in an animal's brain.
Like the cells of a conventional battery, layers of the new device can be stacked together to increase their output.
So the argument is, you know, it's like taking cells from a cadaver, and people don't have a problem with that.
Moreover, in fields like solar cells, travelling-wave tubes and read-out integrated circuits, there is either only one domestic supplier or a financially weak supplier.
Like fuel cells, another 19th-century invention that promised more than it delivered, the Stirling engine has been a device in search of an application.
ECONOMIST: A more efficient way to make electricity in spacecraft
Dr Jaisson suspects, though he has not yet proved for sure, that all the ants in the colony are genetically identical like the cells in a single human body.
Like ES cells, maGSCs can spontaneously differentiate into the three basic tissue layers of the embryo - and contribute to the development of multiple organs when injected into embryos.
While international sales will remain strong for a while, Venkataraman says, they too will begin to suffer after 2011 as alternative technologies like fuel cells and nuclear hit the market.
In January GM (nyse: GM - news - people ) contracted to sell the Army a fleet of trucks powered by next-generation power plants like fuel cells and diesel-electric hybrids.
The technique used by Green and Hollister is part of a burgeoning field called regenerative medicine, which involves engineering therapies -- using things like stem cells, or "body parts" constructed out of biological material -- to harness the body's ability to heal itself.
That technique for generating embryonic-like stem cells (called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells) bypassed the need for transferring the cells into eggs, as Wilmut had done, and also averted the ethical issues attached to extracting stem cells from embryos as Thomson had done.
And what they found was that after a few days, these genes that they added were able to get the skin cells to start behaving just like embryonic stem cells.
His diabetes work led him to understand how to create a drug that would get directly into cancer cells, which were a lot like the stem cells he was studying in diabetes.
FORBES: Patrick Soon-Shiong and one of cancer's biggest riddles.
So they felt, well, hmm, if we can boost them in skin stem cells, maybe they'll start behaving like embryonic stem cells.
Meanwhile, the cost of making traditional crystalline cells is dropping, making it easier for companies like Q-Cells and Suntech to compete with First Solar on price.
Put another way: Antioxidants may protect cancer cells from harm just like they protect normal cells.
CNN: Antioxidants may interfere with breast cancer treatment
Most did nothing, but one protein he tested in April 1998 had remarkable properties: It made a crucial class of immune cells called B-cells grow like crazy, while having little effect on other cells.
The dust is made of a honeycomb structure of cells like microscopic golf balls.
应用推荐