Personalized Medicine is in Your Skin

Novel technique for creating stem cells from your own skin cells could provide new insights on diseases.

Stem cells have the ability to transform from undifferentiated cells into the mature, specialized cells found in the human body. They help to repair the body by replenishing specialized cells and maintain the normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin or intestinal tissues.

Stem cells provide the potential for human transplantation therapies to treat or cure disease through tissue support, cell replacement or regeneration, but research has been restricted due to ethical concerns about embryonic stem cells. A new technique using cells from a small skin biopsy to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) may resolve those issues. These stem cells can be converted into neurons, allowing researchers to study “brain tissue” from the patient.

These iPS cells allow researchers to create cell-based disease models in a dish, where they can study them experimentally. The cells could also make personalized medicine possible. By creating your own stem cells, a potential therapeutic can be tested on your cells before you use it.

Participate in this research project [1] and others [2].