Cell ther­a­py start­up rais­es $16 mil­lion to fund its quest for the Holy Grail in re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine

In 2006, Shinya Ya­mana­ka shook stem cell re­search with his dis­cov­ery that ma­ture cells can be con­vert­ed in­to stem cells, re­liev­ing a long­stand­ing po­lit­i­cal-eth­i­cal block­age and throw­ing open med­ical re­search on every­thing from curb­ing eye de­gen­er­a­tion to or­gan print­ing.

But that process still has pit­falls, in­clud­ing in risk and scal­a­bil­i­ty, and some re­searchers are ex­plor­ing an­oth­er way first hint­ed at years ago: new tech­nol­o­gy to con­vert ma­ture cells di­rect­ly in­to oth­er ma­ture cells with­out the com­plex and time-con­sum­ing process of first mak­ing them in­to stem cells.

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