Snippet from the article:
In 2007, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed adult skin cells into a stem-like state using a quartet of genes. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) earned Yamanaka a Nobel Prize in 2012, kicked off a flood of research, and promised a way of growing bespoke tissues.
But reprogramming techniques are still notoriously inefficient. At best, they can convert around 10 percent of adult cells into iPSCs; often, they only manage around 0.1 percent. Worse still, the process seemed random, and it was impossible to predict which cells would be successfully reprogrammed.
This roadblock may be a thing of the past. Jacob Hanna at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science has found a straightforward way of producing iPSCs with almost 100 percent efficiency. Hanna’s team simply disabled a single gene, Mbd3, which seems to repress pluripotency.
Read the rest — Inducing Pluripotency Every Time
The techniques that have been known since Yamanaka’s research in 2007 were not efficient; however, doctors from all over the world are trying to do the same thing with more efficiency. These cells, if they can be produced, holds the secrets to regrowing or repairing organs, the dream of scientists world wide.
It seems to be a major breakthrough, and although much more research will be done, for those of you who keep writing to me to ask when we will see hair regeneration, perhaps the answer will come from this research.
