BBC reports on neurologists who’ve managed to not only create brain cells in the lab – but to make Parkinson’s-diseased cells from scratch:
The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson’s.
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“This is the first time that human dopamine neurons have ever been generated from Parkinson’s disease patients with parkin mutations,” said Dr Jian Feng who led the investigations.
“Before this, we didn’t even think about being able to study the disease in human neurons.
“The brain is so fully integrated. It’s impossible to obtain live human neurons to study.”
They started with skin cells from people who had the parkin gene mutation that causes Parkinson’s.