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"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, it is in
ourselves." Willy Shakespeare said that, and he didn't know
quite how right he was.
The human body is made up of over 200
different types of cells.
Each one of these is descended from that first cell, the
zygote, that formed when the genes of your dad teamed up
with the genes of your mum to make you, you.
As you grew, these cells multiplied and differentiated,
each one going down a different developmental route.
And there was no turning back--
their destiny was fixed.
It's like clay--
once it's been sculpted into twee, ridiculous tat, it's
forever stuck that way.
In 2012, Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize for working
out how you could manipulate our genes, including the c-Myc
gene on chromosome 8, and turn adult cells
back into stem cells.
These cells are full of potential, and we can use them
to make any kind of cell that we want.
Made from our own cells, one day we may be able to regrow
organs, or repair them, without any
fear of tissue rejection.
A great man once said, "You cannot escape your destiny."
That one was Darth Vader.
But Luke Skywalker and geneticists
have proved him wrong.