Dr. George Daley of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues has found a new method to turn ordinary skin cells to embryonic-like stem cells.

This breakthrough has the potential to form any kind of tissue. Unlike two other groups of scientists that got theirs from commercially available cells from labs, Daley's group was able to get their sample from a volunteer.

The Harvard Med School-based group was able to discover four essential genes that were needed to turn the skin cell into acting like embryo cells with their embryonic stem cell research.

Although it is controversial because it involved destroying days-old embryos, experts say that it is essential to continue learning more about them. These scientists are hoping to start the age of regenerative medicine, tailor-made treatments can be done for injuries, Parkinson's, and even Diabetes.

But the method is still not ready to be tested on human beings because when samples were injected into mice, the cells turned into tumors. Even with this new development on stem cell research, Daley commented that,

The fact that embryonic and fetal cells convert more efficiently than adult cells was suggested in mouse studies but the pattern is quite apparent with human cells.

This suggests that there are many aspects of the biology of reprogramming we still need to understand to make the process more efficient.