Mitochondria Swap
By Kate Yandell,
The Scientist
| 07. 15. 2015
Untitled Document
Scientists have used two methods to generate patient-specific pluripotent stem cells with normal mitochondria for people with defects in these organelles, according to a study published today (July 15) in Nature. The first method generates stem cells for people with some normal mitochondria and some defective ones, a state called heteroplasmy. The researchers isolated fibroblasts from these patients and reprogrammed them to into multiple lines of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). They then tested these iPSC lines for mitochondrial mutations, selecting cells that had ended up with only nonmutated mitochondria following many cell divisions and mitochondrial redistributions. The second method, which works for patients who have no nonmutated mitochondria, involves transplanting these patients’ cell nuclei into healthy eggs with their own nuclei removed, a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
“It’s a first step, but we will follow up with further research,” said study coauthor Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University’s Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy in Portland. “Hopefully we will be going through some clinical trials using...
Related Articles
By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 03.08.2024
Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago.
The work raises the prospect of older women being...
By Gerry Smith, Bloomberg | 03.12.2024
When Celenise Mahmood first learned about two new gene therapies that could cure sickle cell disease, she felt a wave of relief.
Her 9-year-old son, Navid, has the inherited blood disorder. By age 5, he’d had over 30 life-saving blood...
By Liz Baker, Debbie Elliott, and Susanna Capelouto, NPR | 03.06.2024
The Alabama State Legislature passed a bill Wednesday night granting civil and criminal immunity for in vitro fertilization service providers and receivers.
Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed the bill into law within an hour of it passing the Alabama...
By Daniel Gilbert, The Washington Post | 03.07.2024
Vitaly Kushnir’s fertility clinic offers to screen an embryo to predict a baby’s sex, but the service can lead to ethically murky territory, like when a couple wanted it so their first child could be a boy.
But the couple...