Can cells be reprogrammed?

A disease takes a toll on your organs and sometimes it goes to an extent that you may need a transplant or a way to regenerate the organ. Getting an organ for a transplant is extremely difficult and the surgery itself is risky. In recent times. Scientists have found a way to regenerate diseased cells by reverting adult cells to their initial embryonic stage and then converting these embryonic cells into any kind of adult tissue. This process however, is very time consuming.

But researchers have developed a new model which allows the conversion of adult cells to different cells without the middle step of converting it into embryonic stage. In 1989, it was discovered that you could convert adult cells into muscle cells by exposing them to a protein called transcription factor (TF). This protein regulates the genes in the cells, thereby determining what kind of cells they become. There are different kinds of TF and the manipulation of each of these have different outcomes. This is the same process that was used to convert adult cells into embryonic cells.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have taken this process to the next step. They have found that instead of just exposing the cells to a few varieties of TF, if the cells are exposed to these TF at a particular sequence and time, they can be changed into a different type of cells altogether. They use Hi-C data, which is a #d representation of the genome to determine the timing and sequence.

This has tremendous application in today's world and can even prove to be that elusive cure for cancer. If cancerous cells can be converted into benign cells, it effectively cures cancer. The work is theoretical as of now, but it is moving into application stage.