During my career as a life sciences patent attorney (some 30 years), I have seen many aspects of biology evolve. One area of particular note is how scientists have developed ways of turning immature undifferentiated cells into specific types of differentiated adult cells, such as liver cells, cardiac cells, muscle cells and the like. The evolution of the technology has not only led to a great many patents being filed (of which I have certainly filed a few), but also, due to the commercial importance of the technology, a significant amount of litigation surrounding this.
I was therefore interested to read an article that reported on new work, led by scientists at MIT, describing how adult differentiated skin cells could be converted directly into neurons. Previously, one had to coax undifferentiated embryonic stem cells, or latterly, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, using defined factors, to differentiate into specific adult cell types. However, this new work opens up the possibility of circumventing the use of embryonic or iPS cells. I will certainly be watching to see if this work can be adapted for the generation of other adult cell types, which could be a real game-changer.
We were able to get to yields where we could ask questions about whether these cells can be viable candidates for the cell replacement therapies, which we hope they could be
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