Induced Pluripotency as Substitute of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer? - The Impact of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells on Drug Discovery and Regenerative Biopharmaceuticals

Abstract

This chapter aims to introduce current and future uses of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) derived from in vitro fertilized embryos. These and stem cells derived from parthenogenetic and nuclear transfer embryos could be used for cell therapy, as in vitro cell models for drug discovery/screening and for studying early human development and pathogenesis of human diseases. However, development of therapeutic and screening applications and products from hESC is hampered by several barriers. Therefore, gaps in our current understanding of stem cell basic science need to be filled before either application can move forward with confidence for biopharmaceutical development. © 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.