The researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine say the ability to quickly coax human embryonic (pluripotent) stem cells to generate such cell types as skeletal muscle, bone and blood vessels would be a major advance in regenerative medicine. Pluripotent means the cells can develop into any type of cell in the body.

The researchers said the findings could potentially enable scientists to repair heart tissue after a heart attack, make cartilage to repair painful joints or produce bone to help people recover from accidents or other trauma.

"Regenerative medicine relies on the ability to turn pluripotent human stem cells into specialized tissue stem cells that can engraft and function in patients," said study co-senior author Dr. Irving Weissman. He directs Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and its Ludwig Cancer Center.

"It took us years to be able to isolate blood-forming and brain-forming stem cells. Here we used our knowledge of the developmental biology of many other animal models to provide the positive and negative signaling factors to guide the developmental choices of these tissue and organ stem cells. Within five to nine days we can generate virtually all the pure cell populations that we need," he said in a university news release.

Embryonic stem cells can become any type of cell by responding to cues within the developing embryo. These cues direct the cells to become specific cell types.

For the study, the researchers experimented with different combinations of known signaling molecules to prompt the stem cells to become more specialized precursor, or progenitor, cells.

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