Several different labs have managed to streamline the production of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Originally, scientists inserted four different genes into cells to push them into the pluripotent state. However, by using a variety of new techniques and soaking cells in various chemicals, several labs have managed to lower the number of genes required to generate iPSCs.
Now Hans Schöler and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, have shown that neural cells, which already express high levels of three of the four standard pluripotency factors (SOX2, KLF4 and C-MYC), can be converted into iPSCs by transfection with only OCT4 (Kim, J. B. et al. Oct4-induced pluripotency in adult neural stem cells. Cell 136, 411–419 (2009)). This worked in mouse cells and the resulting iPSCs all passed every test of pluripotency.
Thus the production of iPSCs is getter easier and easier.
Beyond the Dish 