The 8 minute video below is a great primer on pluripotent stem cells, the main piece of our discussion this month. Just a couple years ago, researchers in Japan were able to take human skin cells, have them express certain genes in order to return to a stem cell state. Research in this area is just beginning; we don’t know if these induced pluripotent stem cells function as embryonic stem cells.

The short term promise of these iPSC is in drug development. Specifically, growing these iPSCs into adult mature cells to test new drugs upon. For mature human cells, often testing on mice or other animals proves ineffective (or at least an incomplete picture). This advancement could fundamentally change the entire drug development process.