Stem cell study raises hopes that organs could be regenerated inside patients' own bodies

However, Dr Manuel Serrano, who led the research which is published in the journal Nature, said it would be at least five years before the first clinical trials to reprogram adult cells in human patients.

He said: The main surprise of our work is that it is possible to generate pluripotent stem cells directly in the tissue in living organisms.

We can imagine that transitory reprogramming could help in the natural regeneration of damaged tissue.

In principal we hope that it could help to repair any kind of damage like in the heart, brain or liver, but we have still to find which will respond best.

The research, which is published in the journal Nature, used genetically modified mice that carried a gene cassette that caused them to produce the reprogramming factors.

They were given a drug in their drinking water that turned the genes on and caused the reprogramming factors to be released, leading to the development of induced pluripotent stem cells that were similar to the stem cells found in the early stages of a developing embryo.

These have the capacity to develop into almost any other tissue found in the body, although the scientists have still to show that this can occur inside the mice.

In patients, such reprogramming could be targeted by injecting the factors at a local site.

However, creating inducted pluripotent stem cells in the body also carries risks as they also have the ability to develop into cancer cells.

Dr Serrano said they would have to do more research to establish how they could control the development of the reprogrammed cells so they did not produce tumours.

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Stem cell study raises hopes that organs could be regenerated inside patients' own bodies