Application of direct protein transduction of Stem Cell Factors to reprogram mouse and human somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells

Derivation of pluripotent stem cells can be induced by retroviral delivery of a defined group of factors into mouse and human somatic cells. We propose to reproduce these results in both species using a safer and possibly more efficient protein transduction approach. Unlike the retroviral delivery, our approach will not result in genome modification and will enable the factors to be present only in the required timeframe. This method may provide an unlimited supply of patient-specific cells for regenerative medicine with closer histocompatibility matches with recipients, eliminating the need to use embryos for generating new embryonic stem cell lines.