Come on, lets speed this up, 10 million persons a year could use this.
You can use this to watch the cells to see how they are doing.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=129731&CultureCode=en
The field of cell therapy, which aims to form new cells in the body
in order to cure disease, has taken another important step in the
development towards new treatments. A new report from researchers at
Lund University in Sweden shows that it is possible to re-programme
other cells to become nerve cells, directly in the brain.
Two years ago, researchers in Lund were the first in the world to
re-programme human skin cells, known as fibroblasts, to
dopamine-producing nerve cells – without taking a detour via the stem
cell stage. The research group has now gone a step further and shown
that it is possible to re-programme both skin cells and support cells
directly to nerve cells, in place in the brain.
“The findings are the first important evidence that it is possible to
re-programme other cells to become nerve cells inside the brain”, said
Malin Parmar, research group leader and Reader in Neurobiology.
The researchers used genes designed to be activated or de-activated
using a drug. The genes were inserted into two types of human cells:
fibroblasts and glia cells – support cells that are naturally present in
the brain. Once the researchers had transplanted the cells into the
brains of rats, the genes were activated using a drug in the animals’
drinking water. The cells then began their transformation into nerve
cells.
In a separate experiment on mice, where similar genes were injected
into the mice’s brains, the research group also succeeded in
re-programming the mice’s own glia cells to become nerve cells.
“The research findings have the potential to open the way for
alternatives to cell transplants in the future, which would remove
previous obstacles to research, such as the difficulty of getting the
brain to accept foreign cells, and the risk of tumour development”, said
Malin Parmar.
All in all, the new technique of direct re-programming in the brain
could open up new possibilities to more effectively replace dying brain
cells in conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.
“We are now developing the technique so that it can be used to create
new nerve cells that replace the function of damaged cells. Being able
to carry out the re-programming in vivo makes it possible to
imagine a future in which we form new cells directly in the human brain,
without taking a detour via cell cultures and transplants”, concluded
Malin Parmar.
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24890&news_item=6030
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