A feeding frenzy for embryos and stem cells: meeting the media frontally!

Excerpt

With all the media coverage over the obesity epidemic of late, it comes as no surprise that the dietary habits of embryos and stem cells are drawing mounting attention in the fields of reproductive, as well as regenerative medicines. A not-so-obvious parallel between the diets of human embryos and stem cells was perhaps unavoidable, when considering culture conditions that, in the end, provide both disciplines with their outcomes—embryos capable of establishing and maintaining a pregnancy or pluripotent stem cells that could be transformed into tissue replacements. The feeding frenzy at hand derives from recent studies that, on the one hand, revisit the question of how culture media influence the birth of embryonic stem cells within the inner cell mass and on the other, seek to establish chemically defined conditions for deriving and maintaining induced pluripotent stem cells(iPSC). …