Embryo-Like Stem Cells Enter First Human Trial
By David Cyranoski,
Nature
| 02. 14. 2013
It will be the first clinical study to put induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into humans — and where more fitting than in Japan, where Shinya Yamanaka garnered a Nobel prize last December for showing how to take bodily cells and return them to an embryo-like pluripotent state.
Masayo Takahashi of the
Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe just cleared the second and, observers say, most difficult hurdle in starting her iPS cell trial to treat age-related macular degeneration, a condition that affects the retina and can lead to blindness.
On Wednesday an institutional review board (IRB) at the
Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IBRI), which is going to sponsor the trial, gave conditional approval. The team needs now only to notify the IRB of the final results of some preclinical safety trials now underway (
see story in Japanese).
Having already received IRB approval at her home institution, Takahashi can now move towards the final step before patient recruitment: getting health ministry approval. She’s expected receive that in time for starting the trials during this fiscal year...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Yelena Biberman and Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethics Forum | 04.16.2024
A quiet biological revolution in warfare is underway. The genome is emerging as a new domain of conflict. The level of destruction that only nuclear weapons could previously achieve is fast becoming as accessible as a cyberattack.
Now for the...
By Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan, CBC | 04.09.2024
A Canadian DNA laboratory knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...