| 1 | NIE SINGAPORE | Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell iPSC | 89919 | 1823 | 50 | 65.4 | positive | 5:04 | We often hear in Chinese myths that there was an elixir of eternal life that would grant the people who drank it immortality. Of course it was brushed aside as a myth, but what if I said that this could actually be a reality in the years to come? In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher, introduced induced pluripotent stem cell technology. This technology was revolutionary as it allowed scientists to convert any mitotic cell into a stem cell. The mitotic cells are artificially induced to revert back to a state where it can specialise into different cell types. It is like taking a cake and reverting it back to flour and eggs and changing it into another food, like cookies. Not only that this defied convention, as it was thought cell differentiation was not reversible. It also opened up countless possibilities in potential medical treatments. Before we go more in depth about IPSE, we need to first learn about PSC. Pluripotent stem cells are cells that are able to differentiate into most cell types. In other words, these stem cells which are not specialised when placed in a certain environment will specialise into different cell types. As we develop as an embryo, these cells are what form our organs, limbs, bones and so on. In the past, these cells were harvested from embryos in the blastocyst stage. However, this was unethical as this resulted in a death of the embryo and was not well received by the public as a possible regular treatment. IPSEs were made by taking a mitotic cell from the patient's body, usually skin cells, and treated the cells with specific transcription factors. Opt for, Clif4, Sox2 and C-Mike proteins. These transcription factors that were added outcompeted the other transcription factors and took control of how the cells behaved by changing the packing of DNA and the level of expression of different genes. This caused the mitotic cell to revert back to its pluripotent state. IPSE has many benefits for patients. For example, patients with severe burns can have their skin grown in the laboratory and later grafted onto them. One limitation of current skin grafting methods is that when transplanting the skin from one area of the body to the burn section, structures such as hair follicles and blood vessels are lost. By growing the skin from stem cells, the skin graft would have both hair follicles and blood vessels, thus improving their survival rate. Another group of people would be patients suffering from organ failure. Looking back at our video on Xenograph, we learnt that shortage of organs to treat organ failure has led to doctors looking for alternative sources and the current solution is humanized pick organs. However, with IPSE, patients would be able to grow another organ with their own cells and DNA, thus reducing their dependency on organ supply and they need not worry about organ rejection or incompatibility. Lastly, IPSE can be transplanted into the pancreas of diabetic patients and they can differentiate into pancreatic cells to produce insulin, thus reducing the need and reliance on long-term medication. With IPSE being such a complex process, it is without doubt that it would not be 100% efficient. Experiments have shown that this process of reverting a mitotic cell into a pluripotent stem cell may not always be successful and harmful mutations could occur instead, leading to higher risk of genetic diseases such as cancer. Also, IPSE is an expensive process and the cost of the patient has to bear may be greater than the benefits it can bring. An ethical concern is that it would be possible to create an egg and a sperm from normal skin cells to create a human being. Some people may see this as a problem as we are able to create human embryos and life. Also with the advancement of technology, it could be possible to edit the genes in the sperm or egg to produce human beings with desirable traits. Even though IPSE comes with high risk, we cannot deny the progress it will bring to medical therapeutic advancements. As such, perhaps to mitigate these risks and concerns, we can have strict regulatory controls in place. What do you think are some suitable controls to prevent the abuse of this elixir of eternal life? | ↗ |