Progress and prospects in stem cell therapy and drug discovery

• 来源期刊: 中国药理学报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2013,（6）
• 页码范围: 717-718
• 页数: 2页
• 语种: 英文
• DOI: 10.1038/aps.2013.72

摘要

During the past few years,we witnessed explosive progress in the field of stem cell research,leading to an increasing hope for more effective cell replacement therapies to treat various diseases.The self-renewal capability of stem cells,combined with their ability to differentiate into different cell types under programmed conditions,enables improved models for drug discovery and mechanism-based studies of diseases,hence laying the foundation for their therapeutic applications[1].In fact,induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based transplantation therapy has already been performed in rodent models[2]. The examples of major progress are seen in the multiple fronts.Active small molecules have been identified to promote stem cell self-renewal,proliferation,differentiation and somatic cell reprogramming[3].The effective applications of iPSC technology open a new path for cell replacement therapies and drug screening.Furthermore,patient-specific iPSCs and subsequently differentiated cells manifesting disease phenotypes allow reconstitution of human disease pathology in cell culture,thus offer precious opportunities to investigate human proteins in the native cellular context.