Advances in techniques supporting cell replacement therapy

Background: In regenerative medicine, cell replacement therapy can be applied to various diseases involving non functioning cells or cell damage/death due to various causes, e.g. diabetes mellitus, leukemia, Parkinson's disease, myocardial infarction, degenerative diseases, etc. The best source of cells for cell replacement therapy is undoubtedly the patient's own cells. Objective: to provide information regarding recent techniques in developing individually tailored cells that are needed for cell replacement therapy. Design: A review of the literature concerning the various techniques supporting cell replacement therapy. Materials and methods: Search in Medline/Pubmed on April 24 ^th, 2006, key word: nuclear reprogramming and stem cell. We reviewed the literatures, summarized and presented in a comprehensive way the various techniques supporting cell replacement therapy. Results: Various techniques are available to generate individually tailored cells, i.e. somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to generate patient-specific pluripotent stem cells that can be differentiated into what ever type of cell needed, and treatment of patient's adult cells or adult stem cells using reprogramming factors to generate the cells needed. Conclusion: The success in generating those cells depends on many factors, some of which still need to be elucidated. In the future, the findings of various reprogramming factors that can be used in vivo will open a new era in regenerative medicine.