A team around CA Vacanti at Harvard Medical School and researchers at RIKEN’s Institute for Developmental Biology in Kobe have found that mouse lymphocytes can be turned into pluripotent cells after a short stress at lowered pH. STAP cells (for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) could be expanded in vitro and, if injected into blastocysts, efficiently contributed to the formation of chimaeric embryos.

Haruko Obokata et al., Nature doi:10.1038/nature12968