Scientists generate liver cells from skin
Chinese scientists have found a way to restore damaged livers using adult skin stem cells.
ABC News: 12 May 2011
And now for some perspective from Nature News. I noticed the ABC article didn’t mention that the technique is a long way from the clinic and that technique involved switching off a gene in the adult cells that protect against cancer, which for human use would require some re-thinking. the interesting thing though is that it doesn’t involve turning the adult cells back into stem cells first. This step seems to have been by-passed.