Fly iPCs? Opinion piece in Genes suggests it should be tried

Kaur P, Jin HJ, Lusk JB, Tolwinski NS. Modeling the Role of Wnt Signaling in Human and Drosophila Stem Cells. Genes (Basel). 2018 Feb 16;9(2). pii: E101. PMID: 29462894.

From the abstract: "The discovery of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells ... dramatically transformed the study of stem cells ... Although advances have pushed the field forward, human application remains some years away, in part due to the need for an in-depth mechanistic understanding. The role of Wnts in stem cells predates the discovery of iPS cells with Wnts established as major pluripotency promoting factors. Most work to date has been done using mouse and tissue culture models and few attempts have been made in other model organisms, but the recent combination of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing with iPS cell technology provides a perfect avenue for exploring iPS cells in model organisms. ... In this opinion article, we draw parallels between Wnt signaling in human and Drosophila stem cell systems, propose ways to obtain Drosophila iPS cells, and suggest ways to exploit the versatility of the Drosophila system for future stem cell studies."

Of related interest: RasV12 method for isolation of new cell lines, developed by A. Simcox (OSU).
http://flyrnai.blogspot.com/2012/10/breaking-report-cell-culture.html
http://flyrnai.blogspot.com/2009/01/technical-note-making-new-cell-lines.html