Advantage and Disadvantage of iPS

Advantages:

• Avoiding transplant rejection. Since iPS are cultured from the patient’s own cells, it should be possible to avoid the immunological reactions that often lead to rejection of transplanted cells.

• Avoiding ethical concerns. iPS are not derived from human embryos, hence the ethical concerns that come with embryonic stem cell usage are avoided.

• Simplifying the generation of patient-specific stem cells which can be used to model diseases in a dish. These models can be valuable in defining the mechanisms of disease pathology and thereby play a vital role in drug discovery and identification of therapeutic targets.

Disadvantages:

• Residual expression of the four transcription factors may induce tumors. c-MYC is a well-known oncogene.