iPS cell

A body cell, such as a skin cell, given back the ability to become many kinds of cell by introducing a handful of genes.

In 2006 Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University showed that adding just four genes to mouse skin cells returned them to a state close to an embryo^[1]. It worked in human cells the next year, and led to the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Because they can be made from a patient's own cells, they may yield tissues and organs with little risk of rejection. Building an entire complex organ such as a kidney, however, is still a long way off.