In October 2010, University of Michigan announced the creation of
the state's first human embryonic stem cell line.
Known as UM4-6, the new cell line lays the foundation for future efforts
to develop innovative disease treatments.
Gary Smith: So this human embryonic stem cell line that we have just produced over the last
few months is really the first embryonic, human embryonic stem cell line that has been
produced in the State of Michigan, and this was really made possible by the voters in
the State of Michigan passing proposition to in November of 2008.
So with that happening, we began working toward the derivation of new human embryonic stem
cells.
In the future really, now we are set up to be able to make stem cell lines that either
are genetically normal or are genetically abnormal, and those genetically abnormal lines
will be very important in trying to understand how disease form and potentially look at ways
to treat those diseases over time.
These human embryonic stem cell lines that we make, that are specific for genetic diseases,
are envisioned to actually give rise in the future to treatments and cures that will make
people's lives better.
So as we began this project toward deriving human embryonic stem cells, there was a lot
of work that we had to do really in making sure that we were prepared, both from an infrastructure
point of view; having the laboratory, having the equipment, but maybe more importantly,
we had to really be prepared and make sure that we comply with federal law, state constitution,
and one of the important aspects in the regulations was again making sure that we comply with
the National Institutes of Health Guidelines that were set down last summer.
And again, by doing that, our hope is that we will be able to make these lines available
for many types of research, by many researchers across the country.
Our first human embryonic stem cell line that we have derived is entitled UM4-6.
This is a line that we began working on in May of 2010.
This is a human embryonic stem cell line that really is derived from a day 5 embryo, that
was donated to the University of Michigan.
We also call these embryos a blastocyst.
And from that blastocyst, we are able to isolate a few cells, and from those cells, then begin
to multiply them in culture to try to derive a human embryonic stem cell line.
Human embryonic stem cell line are millions of cells that are derived from a single cluster
of cells, those 30 cells we begin with from the single embryo.
And these human embryonic stem cells have characteristics that are known to be important
for a human embryonic stem cell line.
They need to be genetically normal, have the right number of chromosomes.
They also need to maintain themselves as they grow in an undifferentiated state.
However, when you want them to differentiate, they should be able to differentiate into
the three different stem cell lineages, and we have identified that that is the case for
the cell line.
We are very excited to have been able to derive this first human embryonic stem line here
in the State of Michigan, and this was from an embryo that was normal.
In the future, our goal is really to be able to derive human embryonic stem cell lines
from embryos that are known to have genetic abnormalities that give rise to specific diseases.
For instance, getting embryos that have been tested and are known to be carriers of the
mutations that give rise to Huntington's disease, Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, Rett syndrome;
all of these are types of genetic diseases that we can actually make human embryonic
stem cell lines for, and those lines themselves then can be used by many individuals to understand
how the disease develops, how the disease progresses, and how we might be able to come
up with treatments and cures for those diseases.