Alex: Now that you have grown all of these skin cells what’s next?
Lauren: We are going to turn your skin cells into stem cells. To make stem cells, we are using a technology called cellular reprogramming for which the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine 2012 was awarded to Drs. Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.
This ground-breaking discovery broke a central dogma of biology which basically stated that you cannot ‘turn the clock back’ or reverse the fate of a differentiated cell. Cellular differentiation refers to the developmental process of taking a cell from an undifferentiated or pluripotent state, e.g. stem cell, to a specialized state with specific function, e.g. skin, heart, liver.
Alex: How are you going to make stem cells from my skin cells?
Lauren: We are introducing four different proteins delivered by a virus into your skin cells. The proteins force and "remodel" your skin cells and turn them into stem-cell like cells that we call induced pluripotent stem cells or "iPS" cells. A scheme of the process is shown in the image below. iPS cells share similar qualities to embryonic stem cells, they can divide almost indefinitely in the culture dish, that means practically, you can grow them continuously for years. iPS cells also have the characteristic to differentiate into any cell or tissue type of the human body.
Alex: What is your ultimate goal? What do you want to do with my cells?
Birgitt: We want to find out why you got Parkinson’s disease and why your dopaminergic neurons in your brain are dying. We think we can do this in this individualized or personalized approach by making your stem cells differentiate into your dopamine producing nerve cells. Then we can compare them to healthy control cultures and define differences and changes. Once we know why your dopaminergic neurons are susceptible, they can be tested with known or novel compounds that potentially reverse the changes and restore them to their normal function. This is the long-term goal, but we will explain in this blog how we build the cell model from your skin cells.
Alex: You make it sound so simple and easy, but I am sure there is more behind the
scenes.
Birgitt: There are definitely additional hurdles and challenges to overcome, but the concept works and the model has obvious advantages -using cells from someone who has the disease- over the traditional cancer cell models that have been used for the last few decades. If you are interested in more details, background and stem cell news, here are some links and blogs.
