Cellular Reprogramming

Cellular reprogramming technology is over 50 years old. Its main goal is to rejuvenate mature, specialized somatic cells (cells that make up the body, except for the germline cells that produce eggs and sperm), turning them into pluripotent cells, which can develop into all cells of the adult body. This can be achieved by erasing the somatic cell's epigenetic memories. Pluripotency can be induced using a “cocktail” of transcription factors, the final product of such procedure being iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells)., whose discovery is expected to contribute to various areas of science, technology and industry.

In this section, I will elaborate on the concepts outlined above, giving you an overview on how the field of cellular reprogramming emerged and developed to its current size and status.

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Explore the sections:

How scientists used to perceive differentiation: Waddington's landscape and Weismann's Bareer
First successful cell rejuvenation experiments: cloning of the African frog and Dolly the Sheep, and the fusion of somatic and pluripotent stem cells
Identification of one of the first reprogramming (transcription) factors- myoblast determination protein 1 (MYOD1), which can turn fibroblasts into myoblasts.
Production of induced pluripotent stem cells from mouse somatic cells using a set of four transcription factors.

I used the following sources to create this topic:

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