ScienceWeek

In Focus: Cognitive Recovery in Socially Deprived Young Children

Science 21 December 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5858, pp. 1937 - 1940
DOI: 10.1126/science.1143921

Cognitive Recovery in Socially Deprived Young Children: The Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Charles A. Nelson, III,1* Charles H. Zeanah,2 Nathan A. Fox,3 Peter J. Marshall,4 Anna T. Smyke,2 Donald Guthrie5

In a randomized controlled trial, we compared abandoned children reared in institutions to abandoned children placed in institutions but then moved to foster care. Young children living in institutions were randomly assigned to continued institutional care or to placement in foster care, and their cognitive development was tracked through 54 months of age. The cognitive outcome of children who remained in the institution was markedly below that of never-institutionalized children and children taken out of the institution and placed into foster care. The improved cognitive outcomes we observed at 42 and 54 months were most marked for the youngest children placed in foster care. These results point to the negative sequelae of early institutionalization, suggest a possible sensitive period in cognitive development, and underscore the advantages of family placements for young abandoned children.

1 Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
2 Tulane University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA.
3 University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
4 Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
5 University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

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In Focus: Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells

Science 21 December 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5858, pp. 1917 - 1920
DOI: 10.1126/science.1151526

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells

Junying Yu,1,2* Maxim A. Vodyanik,2 Kim Smuga-Otto,1,2 Jessica Antosiewicz-Bourget,1,2 Jennifer L. Frane,1 Shulan Tian,3 Jeff Nie,3 Gudrun A. Jonsdottir,3 Victor Ruotti,3 Ron Stewart,3 Igor I. Slukvin,2,4 James A. Thomson1,2,5*

Somatic cell nuclear transfer allows trans-acting factors present in the mammalian oocyte to reprogram somatic cell nuclei to an undifferentiated state. We show that four factors (OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28) are sufficient to reprogram human somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells that exhibit the essential characteristics of embryonic stem (ES) cells. These induced pluripotent human stem cells have normal karyotypes, express telomerase activity, express cell surface markers and genes that characterize human ES cells, and maintain the developmental potential to differentiate into advanced derivatives of all three primary germ layers. Such induced pluripotent human cell lines should be useful in the production of new disease models and in drug development, as well as for applications in transplantation medicine, once technical limitations (for example, mutation through viral integration) are eliminated.

1 Genome Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706–1580, USA.
2 Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715–1299, USA.
3 WiCell Research Institute, Madison, WI 53707–7365, USA.
4 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
5 Department of Anatomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706–1509, USA.