Possible Advance Against Parkinson’s

Cloned nerve cells may cure disease in mice, researchers say

HealthDayNews — American scientists have found a way to produce cloned nerve cells they say can cure mice with Parkinson’s-like disease, says a study in the October issue of Nature Biotechnology.

This research offers the first evidence that cloned cells can cure disease in an animal model, the scientists say.

The scientists were able, in the laboratory, to selectively develop nerve cells specific to the forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord. They were also able to develop supporting neural cell types called glial cells.

The results demonstrate how closely the cloned nerve cells mimic normal brain cell development. That includes the length of the development process, as well as the appearance and function of the cells.

“The new technique is a model system that will provide scientists with the opportunity to see how the brain develops in vitro, and conduct experiments such as observing in a culture dish the developmental consequences of disrupting single or multiple genes,” senior author Dr. Lorenz Studer, head of the Stem Cell and Tumor Biology Laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, says in a news statement.

The next step in the research is to develop unique cell lines for a number of mice with Parkinson’s-like disease and demonstrate that the cloned cells can cure each individual mouse.

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