Scientists study pluripotent stems cells to understand early development and how to use them in regenerative medicine, disease modeling, and drug discovery.
Activating genes for reprogramming factors for a short time transforms large numbers of differentiated cells into multipotent forms that could be useful for cell-based therapies.
An investigating committee at Japan’s RIKEN research center finds evidence of falsification and fabrication in two recent Nature papers that touted a new way to induce pluripotency.
Stem cells supposedly derived by the new method of stimulus-induced acquisition of pluripotency may have come from mouse strains other than those claimed.
Nearly two months after researchers published papers showing that they could induce pluripotency with an external stressor, the work’s validity is still being challenged.
Once believed to be irrevocably differentiated, mature cells are now proving to be flexible, able to switch identities with relatively simple manipulation.