With giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) a beloved, but vulnerable species, scientists have long been searching for innovative ways to ensure their survival. Now, a multi-institution team may well have found one – they’ve successfully taken regular giant panda skin cells, and transformed them into stem cells.

Specifically, they’ve been able to make induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. This is a type of cell that starts off as an “adult” somatic cell – in this case, a skin cell – and is then reprogrammed back into an embryonic-like state, in which it can go on to become any type of cell and replicate itself indefinitely.

The discovery of this Nobel Prize-winning technology back in 2006 brought with it hope for the conservation of endangered species.

“iPSCs offer a self-renewing, inexhaustible source of material from endangered species, capable of regenerating various cell types as needed,” wrote the team behind the current study. “[They] could serve as a crucial tool in preventing species extinction.”

But while it’s shown promise for a number of different endangered species, including the northern white rhino, and even in bringing back those that have already gone extinct, creating iPSCs from giant pandas has proven to be difficult.

In fact, this particular study is evidence that scientific achievement is often preceded by a whole lot of trial and error. As study author Jing Liu told The Scientist, when the team tried out experimental conditions that had previously worked for mice and human cells, it didn’t work – that took them by surprise, but they went back to the drawing board, changed things, and tried again.

Eventually, they found the conditions that did work. “The [iPSC] clones were very beautiful,” said Liu. “We were so excited.”

So, now that the transformation of giant panda skin cells into stem cells has been proven possible, what are the team planning to do with it?

One potential avenue is the creation of giant panda sperm and in particular, eggs. “Techniques such as superovulation and ovum pick-up [making pandas produce more eggs and then retrieving them] are prohibited, making it difficult to harvest eggs from living giant pandas,” the authors explain. “In addition, the scarcity of deceased individuals, many of whom are aged or in poor health, further complicates the collection of viable eggs.”

Giant panda iPSCs could provide a solution to such a problem. Not only that, but it’s also hoped that the resulting eggs could be used to make embryos. “We want to use these stem cells to create an animal,” said Liu.

That doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing lab-grown giant pandas anytime soon, though. As Liu explained, making giant panda embryos “is a challenging thing in the field.”

The study is published in Science Advances.