Nerve cells made from elderly patient’s skin cells
August 1, 2008 | Source: Nature News
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Columbia University have generated motor neurons from reprogrammed skin cells (turned into induced pluripotent stem or iPS cells) of an elderly patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Patient specific motor neurons (Harvard University)
They made iPS cell lines by using viral vectors to introduce four genes into the skin cells (a technique developed in 2006 at Kyoto University). The study shows iPS cells can be made from patients of any age with specific diseases, although they may be more difficult the older the patient is. Other researchers have been developing iPS cell lines for Alzheimer’s disease, Down’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy, and more.
Motor neurons die as the disease progresses, and because the dying neurons reside within the spinal cord, they are nearly impossible to study in living patients.
