Motor Neurone Disease Sees Stem Cell Breakthrough

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Muscular Dystrophy / ALS Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience;Stem Cell Research Article Date: 29 Mar 2012 - 4:00 PDT

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An international team led by the UK's University of Edinburgh and King's College London, and Columbia University in New York, has for the first time made living human motor neurones that feature key properties of MND/ALS. They made the diseased nerve cells using stem cells derived from adult skin.

Having such a laboratory model of a disease to hand vastly improves the speed with which potential new drugs can be screened, and helps expand understanding of the disease.

Programme leader Dr Siddharthan Chandran, Professor of Neurology at the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues, write about this key milestone in the 26 March online, ahead of print, issue of PNAS.

Chandran said in a statement:

"Using patient stem cells to model MND in a dish offers untold possibilities for how we study the cause of this terrible disease as well as accelerating drug discovery by providing a cost effective way to test many thousands of potential treatments."

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Motor Neurone Disease Sees Stem Cell Breakthrough