Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Argumentative Essay
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Applied to the Field of Regenerative Medicine
Imagine having the opportunity to travel back in time with the power to alter the outcome of the future. As pleasing as this may sound, such occurrences just do not seem realistic or even possible in today’s world. Although, if we take a step back and look into time travel on a smaller scale, at the cellular level, it is indeed possible to revert to an earlier stage of life. Specifically focusing on terminally differentiated somatic cells, scientists are now able to induce pluripotency thanks to the findings from Sir John B. Gurdon, and Shinya Yamanaka. Findings from Gurdon’s paper inform us that all cells in an organism contain the same genetic information. The difference in gene expression leads to one cell type over another. …show more content…
Findings from Yamanaka’s paper tell us that the factors responsible from the maintenance of pluripotency in early embryos and embryonic stem cells also are responsible for inducing pluripotency in somatic cells. The factors from Yamanaka’s discovery are OCT-3/4, KLF4, SOX2, and c-MYC; these four transcription factors work together to effectively induce pluripotency and have greatly advanced the technological applications of genetic reprogramming. The field of regenerative medicine has especially benefitted from the genetic reprogramming advances. One of the main goals of regenerative medicine is to restore structures of damaged tissues as well as to restore functions of damaged organs1 . A major application for regenerative medicine is in the field of cardiovascular medicine. The use of regenerative medicine for cardiovascular disease treatment is appealing because it is much less invasive that transplantation and open-heart surgery. In order to determine which combination transcription factors are able to create normal cell fates from the damaged cardiac tissue, induced
Applied to the Field of Regenerative Medicine
Imagine having the opportunity to travel back in time with the power to alter the outcome of the future. As pleasing as this may sound, such occurrences just do not seem realistic or even possible in today’s world. Although, if we take a step back and look into time travel on a smaller scale, at the cellular level, it is indeed possible to revert to an earlier stage of life. Specifically focusing on terminally differentiated somatic cells, scientists are now able to induce pluripotency thanks to the findings from Sir John B. Gurdon, and Shinya Yamanaka. Findings from Gurdon’s paper inform us that all cells in an organism contain the same genetic information. The difference in gene expression leads to one cell type over another. …show more content…
Findings from Yamanaka’s paper tell us that the factors responsible from the maintenance of pluripotency in early embryos and embryonic stem cells also are responsible for inducing pluripotency in somatic cells. The factors from Yamanaka’s discovery are OCT-3/4, KLF4, SOX2, and c-MYC; these four transcription factors work together to effectively induce pluripotency and have greatly advanced the technological applications of genetic reprogramming. The field of regenerative medicine has especially benefitted from the genetic reprogramming advances. One of the main goals of regenerative medicine is to restore structures of damaged tissues as well as to restore functions of damaged organs1 . A major application for regenerative medicine is in the field of cardiovascular medicine. The use of regenerative medicine for cardiovascular disease treatment is appealing because it is much less invasive that transplantation and open-heart surgery. In order to determine which combination transcription factors are able to create normal cell fates from the damaged cardiac tissue, induced