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In their research, Roberts — along with Toshihiko Ezashi, a research assistant professor of animal sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and lead author on the study, and Bhanu Telugu, a post-doctoral fellow in animal sciences — cultured fibroblasts from a fetal pig. The scientists then inserted four specific genes into the cells. These genes have the ability to "re-program" the differentiated fibroblasts so that they "believe" they are stem cells. These ersatz stem cells take on many of the properties of stem cells that normally would be derived from embryos and, like embryonic stem cells, differentiate into many, possibly all, of the more than 250 cell types found in the body of an adult pig.
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