Identifying genes that can enhance induced pluripotent cell generation

In 2006, a strategy to generate stem cells, which can produce any cell type in a body thus called pluripotent stem cells, from skin cells have been developed. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) can be generated from any individual, thus they are and will be etremely useful tools for disease modeling, drug discovery and regenerative medicine. However, this cell conversion process is still very inefficient and only less than 0.1% of human skin cells become iPS cells one month after initiating the conversion process. This project aims to identify genes that can enhance the reprogramming process.