Maturing From Embryonic to Adult Policy on Stem Cell Therapeutics

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) closure of the agency's Center for Regenerative Medicine (CRM), which focused on therapeutic development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), was caused by the lack of progress in practical development of the iPSs for use in human therapies. As the NIH evaluates priorities in future stem cell therapeutic development, adult stem cell processes in the human body need to be prioritized for a number of key reasons, including (1) adult stem cells release many types of molecules that provide much of the therapeutic benefit of stem cells and (2) adult stem cells and somatic cells exist in a state of dynamic transition between different potency levels and can be naturally driven by the microenvironment to a state of pluripotency. Thus, the study and development of adult stems for therapeutic use can include naturally induced pluripotent stem cells (NiPSs) that lack the problematic genetic and epigenetic reprogramming errors found in iPSs.