Abstract: Induced pluripotent stem(iPS) cells have the ability to self-renew while maintaining pluripotency. The generation of iPS cells would allow creation of patient-specific stem cells and disease-specific stem cells, they could be very useful to study various disease mechanisms and provide valuable tools for drug discovery. This article provides a review of recent progress in iPS cell research，including optimization methods to establish iPS cells，reprogrammed cell types，differentiation potential of iPS cells，elite and stochastic models for iPS cells，and applications of iPS cells.

Key words: induced pluripotent stem cells; reprogramming; transcriptional factors