THE ALCHEMY OF INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

A recent milestone in stem cell research has been the derivation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from adult somatic cells reprogrammed by expression of defined transcription factors.  These iPS cells are similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells and can give rise to cells of all three germ layers. iPS cells hold great promise for regenerative therapy, as they not only circumvent the ethical issues of embryonic stem cells, but also provide a means for patient-specific therapy. The derivation of iPS cells and their potential, promise and problems will be discussed in this talk.

SPEAKER'S PROFILE: Dr. Uma Ladiwala is currently a faculty member in Biology at CBS. She obtained an MD from the Grant Medical College, Mumbai and later did post-doctoral research at Huddinge, Karolinska, Sweden as well as at the Montreal Neurological Institute, Canada. She worked as Visiting Scientist at TIFR, Mumbai in the fields of neuro-immunology and neural stem cells.