Scientists have come even closer to developing pluripotent stem cells without destroying embryos. An article in the journal Cell shows that a single transcription factor can transform neural stem cells into cells with malleability of embryonic stem cells Transcription factors are genes that control the activity of other genes. Shinya Yamanaka, the Japanese scientist who first developed "induced pluripotent stem cells", used 4 genes. This was soon pared down to 2 or 3 – and now possibly to 1. A leading stem cell scientist, Hans Schöler of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Germany, says, "Now we've come down to just one that is sufficient. In terms of the biology, it's really quite amazing." ~ Science Daily, Feb 6