Emerging opportunities for induced pluripotent stem cells in orthopaedics

The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has revolutionized biomedicine. Although the potential of iPSCs for tissue regeneration, disease modeling and drug screening has been largely recognized, findings of iPSC research to date are mostly focused on neurology, cardiology and haematology. For orthopaedics, growing interest in the unique cell type has prompted more researchers to get involved in iPSC research. In this article, we introduce the brief history of cellular reprogramming and different reprogramming methods that have been developed, discuss the biology of iPSCs and review previously reported findings of iPSC studies in orthopaedics. THE TRANSLATIONAL POTENTIAL OF THIS ARTICLE: Stem cell therapies hold great promise for treating orthopaedic diseases, manifested in recent study findings and results of clinical trials. iPSCs are a unique stem cell type derived from a patient’s own cells while still possessing the embryonic stem cell-featured pluripotency for generation of all tissues in the body. The distinctive properties make iPSCs much desirable to fulfill the promise of regenerative medicine for clinical orthopaedics.