Since their introduction in 2006, iPSCs (or induced pluripotent stem cells) have changed the way we research and treat diseases. In large part, this is thanks to bypassing the ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cells.
So, why exactly is everyone talking about iPSC applications and their uses within medicine?
If you’re interested in the answer, we’ve made this guide to highlight the ways these stem cells are impacting a wide variety of industries. Let’s get started.
Why Are iPSCs Important?
In this section, we’ll be taking a look at five major ways that induced pluripotent stem cells are changing the world and medicine as we know it. If you want a refresher course on what iPSCs are, check out our guide here.
1. Medical Applications
Due to their pluripotent nature, induced pluripotent stem cells can be transformed into a nearly infinite range of cells and tissue. This includes things like neural cells, blood cells, bone cells, muscle cells, immune cells, and beyond. When administered to patients, these transformed cells have the potential to restore dying and damaged cells.
If a cell or tissue doesn’t match the genetic profile of the person in need, then problems can occur. In many cases, the tissue is rejected completely. In other cases, the person will need to take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent rejection. Unfortunately, these drugs can be both risky and expensive.
However, induced pluripotent stem cells have the potential to be a perfect genetic match for the patient from which they are derived, an approach called an “autologous” treatment. With this approach, transplant rejection issues can be prevented.
Promising early research using iPSC-derived cell therapeutics in mice has produced optimistic results. Here are some of the diseases that the National Institutes of Health believe iPSCs have the potential to cure:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS)
- Spinal cord injuries
- Leukemia
To learn about companies developing iPSC-derived therapeutics, explore this list.
2. Disease Modeling
Another invaluable way that iPSCs are changing the world is by helping us o understand rare diseases. Since induced pluripotent stem cells can be transformed into essentially any cell, they can be used to replicate cells that contain rare diseases. The sample size of available test subjects with certain types of diseases is incredibly small, so this is a big achievement.
This approach provides researchers with a never-ending source of cells to study and test. It can also help researchers see how a disease unfolds since they can track the earliest disease-causing events that occur within the cells.
For example, things like type 1 diabetes are typically confined to fetal development. By studying the moment when it occurs, doctors can potentially intervene before the disease gets too advanced. Here are some of the rare disease that are being studied using iPSC-derived cells:
- Gaucher’s type III
- Huntington disease (HD)
- Spinal muscular atrophy
- Familial dysautonomia (FD) or Riley-Day syndrome
- Friedreich’s ataxia (or FRDA)
- Shwachman-Bodian-Diamond syndrome (or SBDS)
- Becker type muscular dystrophy (or BMD)
- Downs syndrome/trisomy 21
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS)
- Type 1 diabetes
3. Research Purposes
In addition to medical applications and disease modeling, iPSCs can also help further our basic understanding of science. One way their doing this is by helping us understand the link between epigenetic factors and cellular identity. When we say epigenetic factors, we’re referring to changes in your environment, or behavior, that can change the way your genes work and express.
By studying these factors in the context of cellular reprogramming, we’re also able to see their involvement in the development of cancer.
In addition to cancer research, induced pluripotent stem cells have promising potential to assist research related to aging, longevity, genetic errors, and so much more.
4. Drug Discovery / Drug Screening
iPSCs are also making it easier to discover and screen drugs through phenotypic screening. As opposed to target screening, phenotypic allows researchers to take the patient’s iPSCs and create a phenotype (set of observable characteristics) that mirrors it on both a cellular and molecular level.
For example, let’s say multiple patients are suffering from a rare disease. Differences in their genetic background can cause each person to have a different response to the drug. However, using iPSC-derived cell types to do in vitro (“in a dish”) testing allows researchers to create patient-specific drugs that can then be tested for effectiveness and toxicity.
In particular, iPSCs can be derived into liver cells (hepatocytes), cardiomyocytes (heart cells), neurons, and other cells types that could potentially be impacted by new drugs that are under development.
The result is a more cost-effective discovery and screening process that can be implemented before going into expensive clinical trials.
5. Clean (Lab-Grown) Meat Production
Many animal welfare advocates hope to solve the factory farming crisis through the introduction of lab-grown meat. In essence, this is “ethical” meat that avoids issues like animal suffering and the environmental problems that come with farming livestock on a massive scale.
The only connection that a live cow has to one of these clean meat burgers is that they share some of the same cell types. Meaning, the hope is to use cow (bovine) iPSCs and differentiate them into fat or tissue cells that could be used to produce lab-made meat. Because iPSCs can replicate nearly indefinitely, this approach shows intriguing potential.
At the moment, this method of food production isn’t yet cost-effective. However, major restaurants like KFC are already experimenting with the technology.
Are iPSC Cells Ethical?
One reason why researchers are particularly interested in induced pluripotent stem cells is their favorable ethics. As mentioned before, early usage of embryonic stem cells drew a lot of criticism because these cells are derived from early-stage embryos. Though human embryonic stem cells are harvested with consent from the donors, they need to be sourced from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst. Once the stem cells are extracted, it unfortunately kills the embryo.
So, how do induced pluripotent stem cells bypass this issue?
Simple: instead of embryos, iPSCs can be created from mature, non-controversial blood or skin cells. These blood or skin cells are then manipulated in a way that reverts them to a pre-embryonic state. Thus, they bypasses the ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cells.
Interested to learn more about this exploding market segment? View the “Global Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) Industry Report 2021.”
What iPSC applications are you most excited about? Share your answers in the comments below.