Starting with normal skin cells from endangered species, scientists with The Scripps Research Institute have for the first time produced stem cells from these species.

A drill at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo [Thomas Kost]

They say such cells could improve reproduction and genetic diversity for some endangered species, possibly saving them from extinction. Stem cells also could improve the health of endangered animals in captivity.

Stem cells have the potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In many tissues they serve as an internal repair system, dividing without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive.

When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, a brain cell, an egg or a sperm.

Oliver Ryder, PhD, the director of genetics at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, had already established the Frozen Zoo, a bank of skin cells and other materials from more than 800 species when he contacted Jeanne Loring, PhD, professor of developmental neurobiology at Scripps Research to discuss collecting stem cells from endangered species.

Geneticist Oliver Ryder displays specimens from his frozen zoo. [San Diego Zoo]

Dr. Ryder thought stem cells from endangered species might enable lifesaving medical therapies or offer the potential to preserve or expand genetic diversity by offering new reproduction possibilities.

When Loring's team met with Ryder in early 2008, they realized that a new technique that turns normal adult cells into stem cells might work for endangered species.

Called "induced pluripotency," the technique works when scientists insert genes into normal cells that transform them into stem cells.

Ryder suggested two species to begin the work.

The first is a primate called a drill, Mandrillus leucophaeus, a monkey closely related to the baboons and to the mandrill. Displaced by logging of their rainforest habitat, drills are among Africa's most endangered mammals.

In the wild, drills are found only in Cross River State in Nigeria, in southwestern Cameroon and on Bioko Island, part of Equatorial Guinea.

Ryder chose the drill because of its close genetic connection to humans, and because in captivity the animals often suffer from diabetes, which researchers are working to treat in humans using stem cell-based therapies.

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