Clinical therapy using iPSCs: hopes and challenges

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are generated by ectopic expression of defined transcription factors in somatic cells. They can undergo unlimited self-renewal and maintain the embryonic stem cells (ESCs)-like ability to differentiate into all three germ layers. iPSCs can potentially provide unlimited autologous cells for therapy and therefore hold great promise for regenerative medicine. Here we reviewed the recent advances in iPSC studies on disease modeling and clinical treatment as well as challenges correlated with clinical development of iPSCs, like tumorigenicity, immunogenicity and genomic instability.