KYOTO —

Kyoto University said Thursday it has obtained a domestic patent for a means to develop induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which have the potential to grow into any type of body tissue. It is the first time a patent has been granted anywhere in the world with regard to the cells, the university said, suggesting the school’s lead in patenting in the increasingly competitive and potentially lucrative field of regenerative medicine.
   
Whether the university could obtain a patent had been closely watched as researchers at Bayer Yakuhin Ltd, the Japan unit of German chemical giant Bayer, appeared to have succeeded in producing iPS cells from human skin cells around the same time a Kyoto University team led by Shinya Yamanaka did.
   
‘‘We would like to obtain intellectual property and give our research achievements back to the medical field so that Japanese people would not have to pay for high medical costs to a particular rights holder,’’ Kyoto University Vice President Hiroshi Matsumoto said at a news conference.
   
The latest patent concerns the main part of the means to develop iPS cells for which the university applied for patents worldwide in December 2006, namely, a means to give animal somatic cells the ability to turn themselves into any kind of body tissue by introducing four types of genes into them.
   
In May this year, the university filed for a patent with the Japan Patent Office for that part of the means, which have medical applications, so it could obtain a patent ahead of its rivals.
   
Kyoto University’s Yamanaka says the latest recognition would not ‘‘directly’’ affect the school’s chances for successful patent applications in other countries, but he said, ‘‘We can expect an indirect impact.’‘
   
In June 2006, a Kyoto University team led by Yamanaka said it succeeded in turning somatic cells in mice into iPS cells without using ova or fertilized ova in what it said was the world’s first such case.
   
Last November, the Japanese university and the University of Wisconsin-Madison of the United States announced separately that they each succeeded in reprogramming human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells.
 
In April, it was reported that Bayer Yakuhin researchers were successful last year in producing iPS cells from human skin cells, but it remains unclear if the Bayer team was ahead of the Kyoto University team in achieving similar results.

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3 Comments

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  timeon at 09:15 AM JST - 12th September

  Professor Yamanaka clearly deserves the credit, and >99% he's got the Nobel.

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  MrMukatsuku at 12:38 PM JST - 12th September

  Additional information from: http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=is07l01

  Unlike embryonic stem cells and the recently discovered (and ethical) "induced pluripotent stem cells" ("iPS cells")[4], adult stem cells do not create tumors.[5]

  [4] In this procedure, one's own body cells are directly re-programmed to an embryonic-like stem cell state. Since this kind of embryonic stem cell, or iPS cell, was not derived through the destruction of a living embryo, their retrieval for research does not pose an ethical problem.

  [5] The iPS cells, being an "embryonic-type" stem cell, have the same propensity to multiply out of control and produce tumors as do embryonic stem cells taken from embryos.

  Juggle that dynamite boys, juggle that dynamite.

• 

  Azrael at 11:36 PM JST - 12th September

  Awesomeness! This is a discovery that certainly deserves the Nobel Prize. This discovery has delayed the day in which Man would trade and sell the unborn under a legal frame. IPS cells may help cure many diseases and provide better quality of life for the ill. This is great news.

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