Scientists unveil the UK's largest resource of human stem cells from healthy donors
With collaborative partners from King's College London, the European Bioinformatics Institute, the University of Dundee and the University of Cambridge, the study also investigates in unprecedented detail the extensive variation between stem cells from different healthy people. Technological advancements have made it possible to take an adult cell and use specific growth conditions to turn back the clock -- returning it to an early embryonic state. This results in an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC), which can develop into any type of cell in the body. These iPSCs have huge scientific potential for studying the development and the impact of diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease. However, the process of creating an iPSC is long and complicated and few laboratories have the facilities to characterise their cells in a way that makes them useful for other scientists to use. The Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Initiative (HipSci) project used st...