Japanese Scientists Test Yamanaka’s Work

Japanese scientists, while basking in the glow of Shinya Yamanaka’s winning of the Nobel Prize, are rushing to put his work to the test in human trials. Scientists at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe plan to use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) in a human trial with patients with macular degeneration—a disease in which the retina becomes damaged and patients lose their vision.

Researchers led by Masayo Takahashi at the Riken center plan to apply Yamanaka’s technique to the patients’ own skin cells to turn them into stem cells before cultivating them to become a certain type of retinal cell. Doctors plan to then transplant those developed retinal cells into the patients’ eyes.

The Riken Center will be the first to use Yamanaka’s technology that allows adult stem cells derived from skin to mimic the power of embryonic cells. Major pharmaceutical firms, such as Pfizer, based in New York, are also planning trials of stem cells, but these trials involve cells that are derived from human embryos. Pfizer plans to start a trial of an embryonic stem-cell therapy among patients with macular degeneration next year, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s clinicaltrials.gov website. In an interview in London, John B. Gurdon, who shared this year’s Nobel Prize with Yamanaka, said “The work in that area looks very encouraging.”

Scientists first must ensure that the cells are safe, Yamanaka said in a video appearance from Japan: ‘”We need to double-check we don’t see any severe side effects in patients after transfer. That’s where we have been spending most of our time.” In the case of macular degeneration, he said, “We are getting closer and closer. It’s almost ready to go.”