‘Reprogramming’ Named Breakthrough of the Year 2008

Each December, the scientific journal Science celebrates key scientific advances of the past year, laments the year’s biggest breakdown and makes predictions for the year to come. This year, ‘reprogramming’ was named Breakthrough of the Year.

The term reprogramming has been coined to describe the derivation of induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells; where a cell with a specialized function (for example a skin cell) is ‘reprogrammed’ to become pluripotent, that is, able to form all cell types of the body.  Reprogramming can also be used to describe the conversion of one type of specialized cell to another type of specialized cell.

But it didn’t all happen in 2008. Mouse iPS cells were first described in 2006. Then following reports of human iPS cells from three research groups, ‘Reprogramming’ placed as first runner-up to breakthrough of the year in 2007. In 2008, the rapid extension of this technology has pushed reprogramming into the number one spot.

In 2008, two groups reported making disease-specific iPS cell lines for at least 10 different diseases, providing scientists with new tools to study the molecular basis of disease, new systems for drug screening, and one day, perhaps, a way to repair and replace damaged cells and tissues. A study using similar techniques to reprogram pancreatic exocrine cells to the beta cells of the pancreas (those damaged in type I diabetes) highlighted the potential of the reprogramming process in specialized tissue.

More from Science.

View a video from Science looking back over the work that led up to this exciting recognition of Reprogramming in 2008. The video features ISSCR Board Members Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and George Daley of Harvard University, alongside Science's Gretchen Vogel.

ISSCR Stem Cell Briefings on Related Research Articles

Direct Cellular Reprogramming Produces Pancreatic Beta Cells

New Tools to Study Disease

Breakthrough in Stem Cell Biology: Human iPS Cells

Mouse Adult Cells Reprogrammed to Embryonic State

*Author affiliation
Heather Rooke, PhD
ISSCR Science Editor

Notes
1. Vogel, G. (2008). Breakthrough of the Year: Reprogramming Cells. Science 322, 1766-1767

Updated February 25, 2009