"Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells" (2007), by Junying Yu et al.

On 2 December 2007, Science published a report on creating human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human somatic cells: "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells." This report came from a team of Madison, Wisconsin scientists: Junying Yu, Maxim A. Vodyanik, Kim Smuga-Otto, Jessica Antosiewicz-Bourget, Jennifer L. Frane, Shulan Tian, Jeff Nie, Gudrun A. Jonsdottir, Victor Ruotti, Ron Stewart, Igor I. Slukvin, and James A. Thomson. Earlier that year Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, Japan published a similar paper,"Generation of Germline-Competent Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells," in Nature. Both papers independently identified four genes used to reprogram human somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells, which are cells that have the ability to develop into any specialized cell type making up the body. The reprogrammed somatic cells were referred to as iPS cells and they exhibit fundamental qualities of human embryonic stem (ES) cells.