The sources for stem cells continue to proliferate.

Umbilical cord blood cells can successfully be reprogrammed to function like embryonic stem cells, setting the basis for the creation of a comprehensive bank of tissue-matched, cord blood-derived induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for off-the-shelf applications, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain.

“Cord blood stem cells could serve as a safe, “ready-to-use” source for the generation of iPS cells, since they are easily accessible, immunologically immature and quick to return to an embryonic stem cell-like state,” says Juan-Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, who led the study published in the October issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

[Reference: AAAS: Medicine]

Spurred, in part, by the controversy over embryonic stem cells, scientific teams all over the world have turned to many different sources (body tissues like muscle, bone, and now umbilical blood) for the production of both pluripotent and totipotent cells. Umbilical blood is a particularly useful source because the cells are immature, that is, closer to the original embryonic stem cells, than cells derived from adult cells. Umbilical cells also are less prone to immunological contamination. In short, this promises to be a readily available, relatively easy to process, and uncontroversial source.