In the brains of mice grow the cells of man
By San Francisco Chronicle,
San Francisco Chronicle
| 12. 13. 2005
Researchers in San Diego have designed mice containing fully functional human nerve cells as a novel way to study and potentially treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
The neurons were formed in the brains of mice that had been injected with human embryonic stem cells as 2-week-old embryos.
Studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla showed that the human cells migrated throughout the mouse brain and took on the traits of their mouse-cell neighbors. The results present direct evidence that primitive human stem cells can be cultured in the lab, be injected into an animal, and then develop into a particular type of desired cell.
The report appears in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists said it was the first time cultured human embryonic stem cells have been shown to develop into a particular type of cell in the body of another living species.
Creation of a so-called "mouse-human chimeric nervous system" stops well short of spawning a mouse with a human-like cerebral cortex. In fact, all the brain structures...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 03.08.2024
Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago.
The work raises the prospect of older women being...
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Guardian | 02.28.2024
Doctors say a man in California who contracted blood cancer while living with HIV is in remission from both potentially fatal illnesses thanks to a treatment they are hailing as remarkable and encouraging.
Paul Edmonds is only the fifth-known person...
By Victoria Gray, Uduak Thomas, and Kevin Davies, The CRISPR Journal | 02.14.2024
In July 2019, medical staff in Nashville dosed the first U.S. patient in the exa-cel therapy trial, sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. That first patient was Victoria Gray, a mother of four from Forest, Mississippi, a sickle cell...