Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with colleagues at three other institutions, report the discovery of two genetic programs responsible for turning stem cells into both the red and white cells that make up human blood. The scientists say their finding is important because it identifies how nature itself makes blood products at the earliest stages of development and provides researchers with the tools to make the cells themselves, investigate how blood cells develop, and produce clinically relevant blood products.
The study (“Direct induction of hemato endothelial programs in human pluripotent stem cells by transcriptional regulators”) was reported in Nature Communications.
“This is the first demonstration of the production of different kinds of cells from human pluripotent stem cells using transcription factors,” explained Igor Slukvin, Ph.D., from the department of pathology and laboratory medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.
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