"A pituitary gland made from stem cells may some day treat diseases in which people produce little or none of the sex, growth or stress hormones that the organ normally churns out.
Japanese scientists have coaxed mouse embryonic stem cells into forming a working anterior pituitary gland, made of several different kinds of hormone-producing cells. When transplanted into mice, the engineered organ produces a stress hormone called corticotrophin.
The results, from Yoshiki Sasai’s team at RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, are published online today in Nature. The same team created a retina from mouse stem cells, then the most complex tissue yet made from stem cells...."