IJBTI – International Journal of Blood transfusion and Immunohematology, Vol. 5; 2015. Original article OPen acceSS Int J Blood Transfus Immunohematol 2015;5:6–13. www.ijbti.com Singh et al. 6 Induced pluripotent stem cells: An update Anubha Singh, Deepak Kumar Singh, Usha Bhoria AbstrAct the discovery that the mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent increased the enormous interest in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPsc) technology for their potential application in biomedical sciences. the breakthrough research offering induction of pluripotent status in somatic cells by direct reprogramming depends upon the genes used for induction. the induced pluripotent stem cells share features with embryonic stem cells such as pluripotency and immortality. the iPsc technology opened new avenues and provided vast opportunities for regenerative therapy and therapeutic drug development. this review summarizes the developments in iPsc technology highlighting the generation of iPscs from blood as a source, which is a very important finding, alleviating the need for more invasive techniques such as skin punch biopsies. Anubha Singh 1 , Deepak Kumar Singh 2 , Usha Bhoria 3 Affiliations: 1 Senior Resident, Department of Laboratory Services, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation Model Hospital, Ministry of Labor, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India; 2 Junior Specialist, Department of Laboratory Services, Em- ployees’ State Insurance Corporation Model Hospital, Min- istry of Labor, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India; 3 Senior Special- ist, Department of Laboratory Services, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation Model Hospital, Ministry of labor, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. Corresponding Author: Anubha Singh, Senior Resident, Department of Laboratory Services, Employees’ State In- surance Corporation Model Hospital, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India; E-mail: anubha.singh0111@gmail.com Received: 11 January 2015 Accepted: 26 February 2015 Published: 09 March 2015 Keywords: Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPsc), reprogramming, Hematopoietic cells, Peripher- al blood How to cite this article Singh A, Singh DK, Bhoria U. Induced pluripotent stem cells: An update. Int J Blood Transfus Immunohematol 2015;5:6–13. Article ID: 100016IJBTIAS2015 ********* doi:10.5348/ijbti-2015-16-RA-2 IntroductIon Transplantation of healthy functional cells which can repair or replace the damage through the process of regeneration is likely to provide a cure for diseases like loss of immune cells, burns, fractures, strokes, renal failure and cancer. Embryonic stem (ES) cells derived from the inner cell mass of mammalian blastocysts from IVF clinic embryos in 1998 by Dr. Thomson and colleagues have the ability to grow indefinitely while maintaining the pluripotency [1]. Use of human embryos, however, faces moral and ethical issues. In addition, it is difficult to generate patient-or disease-specific ES cells, which are required for their effective application. One way to circumvent these issues is to induce pluripotent status in somatic cells by direct reprogramming. In the field of regenerative medicine, induced pluripotent cells hold great promise as they can be generated from adult cells and propagate indefinitely, giving rise to every other cell type in the body such as heart, pancreatic, neurons, and liver cells. Pluripotent cells represent themselves as a single source of cells that review article Peer reviewed | OPen acceSS