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Chemical reprogramming of human somatic stem cells to pluripotent stem cells, another breakthrough in stem cell science

The field of stem cells ushered in another important advance.

On April 13, the team of Professor Hongkui Deng from the School of Life Sciences of Peking University published the latest research results of using small molecule compounds to reprogram cell fate online in Nature. The press release states that, inspired by the regeneration process of lower animals, by restoring an intermediate plastic state, the team is the first to report internationally the case of using chemical small molecules to induce the transformation of human adult cells into pluripotent stem cells.

Pluripotent stem cells (Pluripotent Stem Cells) are a kind of pluripotent cells with self-renewal and self-replication ability, which can differentiate into a variety of human cells and tissues. It has important application value in the fields of cell therapy, drug screening and disease modeling, and is also the most critical "seed cell" in the field of regenerative medicine.

"The study of chemically reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells has opened up a new path for somatic cell reprogramming, which not only helps to better understand the mechanism of cell fate determination and transition, but also brings new insights into the future of regenerative medicine for the treatment of major diseases. Possibly," Deng Hongkui said in an official press release from Peking University.

Hongkui Deng is an important pioneer in the field of chemically induced reprogramming. He is currently Peking University Boya Chair Professor, Distinguished Professor, Director of Peking University Stem Cell Research Center and member of Tsinghua-Peking University Life Science Joint Center. The research directions of his laboratory are somatic cell reprogramming, cell fate regulation, and regenerative medicine, focusing on how to obtain pluripotent stem cells and various functional cells by regulating cell fate. In recent years, the team has extended the chemical programming strategy to different applications in regulating cell fate.

In February this year, they jointly published a research progress in Nature Medicine, in which they established a protocol for the differentiation and preparation of human CiPS cells into islet cells, and obtained functionally mature human CiPS cell-derived islet cells. Safety and efficacy have also been validated in a non-human primate animal model of diabetes.