we often hear in Chinese myths that
there was an elixir of eternal life
their word grunts the people who drank
it immortality of course it was brushed
aside as a myth but what if I said that
this could actually be a reality in the
years to come in 2006
Shinya Yamanaka a Japanese Nobel
prize-winning stem-cell researcher
introduced induced pluripotent stem cell
technology this technology was
revolutionary as it allowed scientists
to convert any mitotic cell into a stem
cell the mitotic cells are artificially
induced to revert back to a state where
it can specialize in two different cell
types it is like taking a kick and
reverting it back to flour and eggs and
changing it into another food like
cookies
not only the distaff I Convention as it
was thought cell differentiation was not
reversible it also opened up countless
possibilities in potential medical
treatments before we go more in depth
about IPSC we need to first learn about
PSC pluripotent stem cells ourselves
that are able to differentiate into most
cell types in other words these stem
cells which are not specialized when
placed in a certain environment who
specialized in two different cell types
as we develop as an embryo these cells
are what form our organs limbs bones and
so on in the past these cells were
harvested from embryos in the blastocyst
stage however this was unethical as this
resulted in a death of the embryo and
was not well received by the public as a
possible regular treatment IPS seized
were made by taking a mitotic cell from
the patient's body usually skin cells
and treated the cells with specific
transcription factors opt for club for
socks too and seem like proteins these
transcription factors that were added
and competed the other transcription
factors and took control of how the
cells behaved by changing the packing of
DNA and the
level of expression of different genes
this caused a mitotic cell to revert
back to its pluripotent state IPSC has
many benefits for patients for example
patients of severe burns can have their
skin grown in the laboratory and later
grafted onto them one limitation of
current skin grafting methods is that
when transplanting the skin from one
area of the body to the burn section
structures such as hair follicles and
blood vessels are lost by growing the
skin from stem cells the skin grafts
would have both hair follicles and blood
vessels thus improving their survival
rate another group of people would be
patients suffering from organ failure
looking back at our video on xenograft
we learned that shortage of organs to
treat organ failure has led to doctors
looking for alternative sources and the
current solution is humanized Pig organs
however with IPSC patients would be able
to grow another organ with their own
cells and DNA thus reducing their
dependency on organ supply and they need
not worry about organ rejection or
incompatibility
lastly IPSC can be transplanted into the
pancreas of diabetic patients and they
can differentiate into pancreatic cells
to produce insulin thus reducing the
need and reliance on long term
medication with IPSC being such a
complex process it is without doubt that
it would not be a hundred percent
efficient experiments have shown that
this process of reverting a mitotic cell
into a pluripotent stem cell may not
always be successful and harmful
mutations can occur instead leading to
higher risk of genetic diseases such as
cancer also IPSC is an expensive process
and the cost of the patient has to bear
may be greater than a benefit it can
bring an ethical concern is that it
would be possible to create an egg and a
sperm from normal skin cells to create a
human being some people may see this as
a problem as we are able to create human
embryos and life
also with the advancement of technology
it could be possible to edit the genes
in the sperm or egg to produce human
beings with desirable trees even though
IPSC comes with high risks we cannot
deny the progress it will bring to
medical therapeutic advancements as such
perhaps to mitigate these risks and
concerns we can have strict regulatory
controls in place what do you think are
some suitable controls to prevent the
abuse of this elixir of eternal life
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