Abstract
The discovery that adult stem cells can be reprogrammed, backwards, to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) was a remarkable and landmark breakthrough in 2006 (1). These iPS then can be differentiated by using specific gene transfections into a wide variety of cell types. Now, at a tremendous pace, many laboratories are improving the efficiency and homogeneity of this process, including the replacement of gene transfection with proteins and small molecules (2). Perhaps not surprisingly, it has been shown that iPS can be made from adult cells from people with diseases (e.g. ref. 3), and in this issue of PNAS Maehr et al. (4) illustrate this process for type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is one of the most common diseases in childhood, causing significant morbidity and mortality and enormous healthcare and economic costs. Worse still, its incidence in children aged under 5 years is set to double by 2020 (5). Currently, we have no idea how to prevent this rapid increase, which must be caused by an increasing permissiveness of the environment acting on a genetic susceptibility background in many countries worldwide.
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