Provided herein are methods of obtaining induced pluripotent stem cells from cells of a hematopoietic lineage.

The present invention relates to a method for generating neuronal and muscular cells from pluripotent stem cells.

The invention relates generally to methods of generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that do not contain the reprogramming vector. In some embodiments, the invention relates to inducing pluripotency in somatic cells by introducing an episomal vector(s) comprising at least one expression cassette containing reprogramming factors and/or synthetic transcription factors and a suicide gene. In some embodiments, the invention relates to inducing pluripotency in somatic cells by introducing episomal vector(s) comprising expression cassettes containing reprogramming factors and/or synthetic transcription factors and a transcriptionally regulated EBNA-1 gene. In some embodiments, the invention relates to inducing pluripotency in somatic cells by introducing episomal vector(s) comprising expression cassettes containing reprogramming factors and/or synthetic transcription factors and both a suicide gene and a transcriptionally regulated EBNA-1 gene.

Disclosed are means, methods and compositions of matter useful for induction of immunological responses towards tumor endothelial cells. In one embodiment the invention teaches fusion of dendritic cells and cells resembling tumor endothelial cells and administration of such chimeric cells as an immunotherapy for stimulation of tumor endothelial cell destruction. In other embodiments pluripotent stem cells are utilized to generate dendritic cells, wherein said dendritic cells are fused with pluripotent stem cell derived endothelial cells created in a manner to resemble tumor endothelial cells.

The present invention provides methods for de-differentiating somatic cells into stem-like cells without generating embryos or fetuses. More specifically, the present invention provides methods for effecting the de-differentiation of somatic cells to cells having stem cell characteristics, in particular pluripotency, by introducing RNA encoding factors inducing the de-differentiation of somatic cells into the somatic cells and culturing the somatic cells allowing the cells to de-differentiate.

A method for inducing reprogramming of a cell of a first type which is not a non-hepatocyte (non-hepatocyte cell), into a cell with functional hepatic drug metabolizing and transporting capabilities, is disclosed. The non-hepatocyte is induced to express or overexpress hepatic fate conversion and maturation factors, cultured in somatic cell culture medium, hepatocyte cell culture medium and hepatocyte maturation medium for a sufficient period of time to convert the non-hepatocyte cell into a cell with hepatocyte-like properties. The iHeps induced according to the methods disclosed herein are functional induced hepatocytes (iHeps) in that they express I and II drug-metabolizing enzymes and phase III drug transporters and show superior drug metabolizing activity compared to iHeps obtained by prior art methods. The iHeps thus provide a cell resource for pharmaceutical applications.

A method of generating protein-induced pluripotent stem cells by delivering bacterially expressed reprogramming proteins into nuclei of starting somatic cells using the QQ-protein transduction technique, repeating several cell reprogramming cycles for creating reprogrammed protein-induced pluripotent stem cells, moving the reprogrammed cells into a feeder-free medium for expansion, and expanding and passaging the reprogrammed cells in a whole dish for generating homogeneous piPS cells. Also provided are the piPCS cells formed using this method and uses thereof.

There are provided to a Rag-2 (Recombination activating gene 2) gene targeting vector, a method for producing SCID-like miniature pigs introduced with the vector, and a use thereof.

A selection method of an iPS cell includes: at a reprogramming process to culture a cell including a plurality of combinations of initializing factors labelled with luminescent genes that are different with each other, acquiring a photon number per unit area or a photon number per unit time of each of the luminescent genes of the cell; judging whether the acquired photon number is more than a threshold that is predetermined for the acquired photon number; and when the acquired photon number is more than the threshold, selecting this cell as an objective cell for a next process.

A method of producing induced pluripotent stem cells including a step for introducing an initialization factor into somatic cells of a mammal, and culturing in a neural stem cell culture medium to obtain induced neural stem cell-like cells, and a step for cultivating said induced neural stem cell-like cells in a growth medium to obtain induced pluripotent stem cells, wherein the initialization factor contains an OCT family, a SOX family, a KLF family, a MYC family, a LIN28 family and a P53 function inhibitor.