"The Origins of ES Cells"

Professor Sir Martin J. Evans, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) may be maintained in tissue culture virtually indefinitely and retain their ability to differentiate into all other cell types. This differentiation may occur in vitro as well as in vivo in the context of a normal embryo. In the mouse the resulting chimaerism provides a vehicle for transfer of novel experimental genetic changes to the whole organism and provides a platform for experimental mammalian genetics. Embryonic differentiation is experimentally accessible in culture and moreover ES cells provide a potential source of other tissue specific progenitor cells which may be useful for regenerative medicine.

This lecture will present the history of ES cell discovery and present evidence for the homology of ES cells with a normal compartment of the early mouse embryo.