A team of scientists from the University of California and the Gladstone Institute in the US has achieved a milestone in cell reprogramming: transforming skin cells into functional cells for the liver . The results have been published in the journal Nature .
Regenerative medicine is advancing by leaps and bounds. Not only is science capable of transforming skin cells into cells for the pancreas or heart, or even neurons, but now these cells are already fully functional, mature cells , with the ability to be applied to the treatments of the patients.
The key to the study has been to reprogram cells in an intermediate state and add a set of genes and compounds capable of transforming them into functional liver cells. The researchers transplanted these liver cells into the livers of laboratory mice and after nine months of monitoring their development and cell function, they found that the transplanted cells were developing into functional mature liver cells.
Although there are still several aspects to be resolved, the truth is that the necessary elements have finally been found to successfully regenerate liver tissue . This discovery offers great hope to all those people who suffer from liver failure and whose only way out until now had been transplantation.
