FIG. 1.Primate stem cell technologies in regenerative medicine and drug discovery: Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines can be derived from adult somatic cell biopsies taken directly from patients or nonhuman primates, or from archived specimens in tissue banks. These tissue or blastocyst-derived pluripotent stem cells may be genetically engineered with targeted mutations or targeted corrections of defective genes, then differentiated into organ-specific functional cell types. This approach offers powerful cell based assays that may improve the specialization of tissue engineering processes for autologous or allogeneic stem cell based therapies. These assays may also improve the drug development process and provide a platform for understanding diseases at the cellular and molecular level.