Credit: Images: Courtesy of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Salk researchers reprogrammed skins cells taken from a sickle cell disease patient into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), immature cells capable of developing into any type of bodily tissue.
To assure that the skin cells were in fact reprogrammed into stem cells, the researchers coaxed them into becoming muscle cells, indicated by the presence of muscle-specific protiens (red) in this image. The cell nuclei - the central compartments that contain the DNA - are seen in blue.