The future's bright, the future's oranges
Research showed that vitamin C accelerates genetic changes in human cells
Stem cell scientists have discovered that vitamin C could help solve the ethical dilemma surrounding the revolutionary but controversial technique by enabling adult cells to be "reprogrammed", rather than harvesting cells from early stage embryos.
Scientists found that transforming regular adult cells into a reprogrammed state similar to embryonic cells was frequently ineffective and prone to a process known as senescence, where the cells age prematurely or stop dividing altogether.
However, trials of the effects of the vitamin, found in fruits such as oranges and kiwi fruit, on both mouse and human cells showed that it accelerated genetic changes and held back the onset of senescence.
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The reprogrammed cells, known as pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs), offer a potential solution to the ethical wrangle in which stem cell scientists find themselves, as they bypass the need to extract embryonic stem cells from unborn embryos.
Dr Duanqing Pei, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou, who led the research, said the findings had opened up a new avenue of research for stem cell research which could revolutionise the treatment of genetic conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
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