Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)

Somatic cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like pluripotent state by expression of defined transcription factors.

Specifications & Metrics

type: Human Stem-Cell & Disease Model
organism: Human and mammalian patient-derived somatic cells (fibroblasts, PBMCs)
control mechanism: Transient expression of the four Yamanaka factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc) followed by lineage-directed differentiation
pioneer: Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi (Kyoto University, mouse 2006, human 2007; 2012 Nobel Prize with John Gurdon)

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi demonstrated at Kyoto University that introducing four transcription factors — Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc (the Yamanaka factors) — reprograms mature somatic fibroblasts into pluripotent stem cells.
Patient-derived iPSCs retain the donor's exact genomic variants, allowing differentiation into human cardiomyocytes, dopaminergic or motor neurons, and hepatocytes for personalized disease modeling and drug efficacy testing.
In preclinical cardiac safety pharmacology (CiPA), human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes provide a human-relevant platform for detecting hERG (KCNH2) and Nav1.5 (SCN5A) pro-arrhythmic liabilities before clinical trials.