Researchers Transform Skin Cells Into Working Neurons for the First Time

very awesome! the number of treatments and cures this could provide is mind blowing. this could give sight to many blind people and help so many people walk again.

Thank you popular science for publishing this article. I'm really getting bored of reading about all of these super cool advances in medicine that never seem to make it into the real world...and if they do they are reserved for the super rich.

this could be extremely useful. for example, what other cells could you turn into other cells. it could very well make stem cell research independent on embryonic stem cells (not that it was in the first place >.>)

Simple things like nerve damage in extremities or surgery locations is it's most common area that this would be used for as I see it. Not repairing ocular nerves or Parkinson’s. Still way too many unknowns.

I can see this process being used to generate new internal organs though like a Kidney, Liver, or even a new Heart from the recipients own Skin cells so there would be no rejection issues. Which POPSCI has touched on in the previous articles.

Great article and an amazing advancement, but do we really need PopSci saying stem cells come form "aborted fetuses"? The majority of stem cells come from the excess embryos from in vitro fertilization. There's enough pressure coming from the ultra conservatives using the fetus argument, we really don't need science publications fueling that outrageous fire. Just saying, be careful with that.

Mr. Dillow, please learn your jargon before publishing an article. The process you're describing is, in fact, stem cell research. Induced pluripotent cells are stem cells. What you've described is inducing pluipotency in "adult" skin cells and then differentiating them into working nerve cells.

Yes, it's amazing, but it's also stem cell research, so I don't know why you specifically said it wasn't.

Also, the point of iPS cells is that we can convert adult cells into stem cells and "reprogram" them into other types of cells. So why bother talking about aborted fetuses and newborn foreskins? Not to mention that even non-induced PS cells are more often taken from cord blood banks than any kind of controversial source.

-IMP ;) :)

stem cell research is important for the survival of humanity. and might help us one day live for thousands of years. great read.

I really hope this could help something like strokes. My little brother had a stroke at birth and it caused him to not be able to use his left side and gave him a mental disability. It's very sad. It seems like something like this could regenerate his damaged neurons. I hope more than anything that something can be done in the future to help the mental and physical states of stroke victims. Much more research needs to be put into this field!!! They need the help!!!

Clay Dillow,

Please update this article.

"This isn’t stem cell technology--using tissue derived from aborted fetuses and the foreskins of newborns"

I hate to think of ANYONE reading that phrase and internalizing it as a definition of stem cell technology.

I have never criticized an article on this website (or any other website), but this article should never have been posted with such a misleading statement.