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Induced Pluripotent
Stem Cell Research Permits “Disease in a Dish” Research
of Parkinson’s
By Wesley J. Smith
Editor’s note.
This appeared over the weekend in Wesley’s great blog at
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/03/27/induced-pluripotent-stem-cell-research-permits-disease-in-a-dish-research-of-parkinsons/
 Another
big breakthrough on the IPSC front: Skin cells from a
patient with Parkinson’s––a variety caused by a genetic
condition––have been turned into neural cells, and then
studied as the Parkinson’s destroys the tissue. From the
story:
There are no cures
because research has been very hard to do, for two
specific reasons: Only humans get the disease, so
laboratory animals aren’t good models for testing. And
it is impossible to extract cells from deep inside the
brains of patients. By the time patients die, the brain
cells are dead, too. “It is a huge bottleneck to
research,” Langston said.
But a new
technique has changed all that. By inserting certain
genes into skin cells, scientists can turn back the
clock, causing them to revert to “induced pluripotent
stem (iPS) cells”— with embryonic-like traits. Then they
are coaxed into becoming mature cells, such as neurons.
This “disease in a dish” technique holds promise for not
just Parkinson’s but a whole range of other disorders,
including Type 1 diabetes, Huntington’’s disease, Down
syndrome and muscular dystrophy. Stanford scientists
have even used the technique to build small faulty
hearts to better understand rhythm disorders.
Genia Brin, an
applied mathematician and retired research scientist at
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, was considered to be
the perfect donor because she has the genetic form of
the disease. Scientists reason that they would have a
better chance of replicating the disorder with her
cells, rather than the cells of someone with a more
sporadic form of the disease. While rare, her form of
the disease behaves just like the more common form, so
it might offer important lessons.
This is what was
promised from human cloning research. That hasn’t
worked––and we shouldn’t try. That ethical line is
easier to defend now that IPSCs are proving so valuable
without having to risk women’s health by harvesting
their eggs, or creating, and then destroying, embryos.
Part Two
Part Three |
