The 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is Awarded to Cell Reprogramming Scientists

Monday Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka shared this year’s Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for work that revolutionized the understanding of how cells and organisms develop.

“By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.”

This is the 3rd time that a Nobel Prize is awarded on a technology that we chose as our area of research and made contributions to the field. The other two are RNA interference (2005) and fluorescent proteins (2008).

Tags: 2012 Nobel Prize, adult stem cell banking, disease model, iPSC, John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, regenerative medicine

Path to Better Drugs through Disease-Specific iPSCs

Induced human pluripotent stem cells

The recent finding that pluripotency, the ability to differentiate into all cell types typically associated with embryonic stem cells, can be induced in somatic cells may be the molecular equivalent of the discovery of antibiotics or vaccines in the last century [1].

iPSC-based disease modeling

Recent studies have described the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with a full range of genetically inherited or sporadic diseases, and in vitro differentiation of these iPSCs to cell types relevant to the disorder with certain disease features.

Example 1 (out of ~20): Progressive motor neuron loss during differentiation of iPSCs derived from spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) patients, reflecting developmental loss seen in the disease.
Example 2: iPSCs made from RETT syndrome give rise to glutamatergic neurons with fewer synapses than controls, a better treatment was found from a panel of candidates based on this model.
Example 3: Neurons differentiated from iPSCs that have been derived from early or late onset Alzheimer’s disease were shown to display different properties and potential interference points.
The identification of novel pathways or drugs that could prevent disease is the ultimate goal of the iPSC-based disease modeling approach.

Major steps towards efficient iPSC disease modeling

The first hurdle for feasible application of patient-specific disease modeling is to achieve efficient generation of iPSCs from large cohorts of patients quickly and at a low cost while eliminating “clonal variations”. As described in a recent publication [2], the Allele Biotechnology team has shown that human fibroblasts can be converted to stem cells in just over a week, achieving bulk conversion efficiency without any chromosome modifications. The process is also xeno-free and feeder-free, enabling both fundamental scientific research and clinical applications.

The next major advancements required for disease modeling are robust lineage-specific differentiation protocols that provide a large number of desired cells for drug testing and screening. Cardiomyocytes derived from iPSCs have been the best known example of large expansion; other cell types will become available in the near future. Allele Biotechnology has commenced differentiating iPSCs along several lineages using our own iPSCs of superior quality.

With cells of disease-matching tissue types derived from patients’ iPSCs, cell-based assays can be designed and developed using various assay formats. Allele Biotech’s leading capacities in fluorescence and bioluminescence, gene silencing, delivery vehicles and single-domain targeting agents will be of unmatched value to drug discovery partners.

1. Review: Wu, SM and Hochedlinger, K. “Harnessing the potential of induced pluripotent stem cells for regenerative medicine ” 2011, Nature Cell Biology, V13-5, 497-505.
2. Allele Biotech publication: Warren, L., Ni, Y., Wang, J. and Guo, X. “Feeder-Free Derivation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells with Messenger RNA” 2012, Nature’s Scientific Reports, doi:10.1038/srep00657.

For business development contact:
iPS@allelebiotech.com
858-587-6645
Fax 858-587-6692
www.allelebiotech.com
6404 Nancy Ridge Drive
San Diego, CA 92121

Related products for academic customers: Non-Integrating iPSC Generation Product Line http://www.allelebiotech.com/non-integrating-ipsc-generation/

New Product of the week: 6F mRNA Reprogramming Premix: $995 for 10 reprogramming!

Tags: cell therapy, disease model, drug screening, iPSC, Klf, Lin28, M3O, mRNA reprogramming, Nanog, Oct, Sox