Researchers from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass. and Kyoto University in Japan used an innovative new method to reprogram adult cells to an “embryonic-stem-cell-like” state, and successfully cured mice with sickle-cell anemia:

This is the first proof-of-principle of therapeutic application in mice of directly reprogrammed “induced pluripotent stem” (IPS) cells, which recently have been derived in mice as well as humans.
The research, reported in Science Express online on December 6, was carried out in the laboratory of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch…
The mouse model had been designed to include relevant human genes involved in blood production, including the defective version of that gene.
To create the IPS cells, the scientists started with cells from the skin of the diseased mice, explains lead author Jacob Hanna, a postdoctoral researcher in the Jaenisch lab. These cells were modified by a standard lab technique employing retroviruses customized to insert genes into the cell’s DNA. The inserted genes were Oct4, Sox2, Lif4 and c-Myc, known to act together as master regulators to keep cells in an embryonic-stem-cell-like state. IPS cells were selected based on their morphology and then verified to express gene markers specific to embryonic stem cells. To decrease or eliminate possible cancer in the treated mice, the c-Myc gene was removed by genetic manipulation from the IPS cells.
Next, the researchers followed a well-established protocol for differentiating embryonic stem cells into precursors of bone marrow adult stem cells, which can be transplanted into mice to generate normal blood cells. The scientists created such precursor cells from the IPS cells, replaced the defective blood-production gene in the precursor cells with a normal gene, and injected the resulting cells back into the diseased mice.
The blood of treated mice was tested with standard analyses employed for human patients. The analyses showed that the disease was corrected, with measurements of blood and kidney functions similar to those of normal mice.
“This demonstrates that IPS cells have the same potential for therapy as embryonic stem cells, without the ethical and practical issues raised in creating embryonic stem cells,” says Jaenisch.

Abstract: Treatment of Sickle Cell Anemia Mouse Model with iPS Cells Generated from Autologous Skin …
Press release: Reprogrammed adult cells treat sickle-cell anemia in mice …

A research team at MIT developed a method to create microparticles with a granular texture that might have a wide range of potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications:

The new technique offers unprecedented control over the size, shape and texture of the particles. It also allows researchers to design particles with specific chemical properties, such as porosity (a measure of the void space in a material that can affect how fast different molecules can diffuse through the particles).
“With this method, you can rationally design particles, and precisely place chemical properties,” said Patrick Doyle, associate professor of chemical engineering. Doyle is one of the authors of a paper on the work appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie, published by the German Chemical Society.
The research team started with a method that Doyle and his students reported in a 2006 issue of Nature Materials to create two-dimensional particles. Called continuous flow lithography, this approach allows shapes to be imprinted onto flowing streams of liquid polymers. Wherever pulses of ultraviolet light strike the flowing stream of small monomeric building blocks, a reaction is set off that forms a solid polymeric particle. They have now modified that method to add three-dimensionality.
This process can create particles very rapidly: Speeds range from 1,000 to 10,000 particles per second, depending on the size and shape of the particles. The particles range in size from about a millionth of a meter to a millimeter.
The team’s new process works by shining ultraviolet light through two transparency masks, which define and focus the light before it reaches the flowing monomers. The first mask, which controls the size and shape of the particles, is part of the technique reported last year by Doyle and his students. The second mask, which is based on MIT professor Edwin Thomas’ work in multibeam lithography, adds three-dimensional texture and other physical traits, such as porosity…
“It’s very easy to integrate the (second) phase mask into the microfluidic apparatus,” said Thomas, Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “Professor Doyle was controlling the overall shape, and now what we’re doing is controlling these inner labyrinth networks.”
Adding inner texture is desirable because it increases the particles’ surface-to-volume ratio, which means if the particle is loaded with probes, there are more potential binding sites for target molecules.

More from MIT: Sculpted 3-D particles could aid diagnostics, tissue engineering …