The UK’s first major study of a disease using stem cells that do not require the creation and destruction of embryos is being launched.

An Oxford University research team will use induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to examine Parkinson’s disease. iPS cells, first developed in 2007, are adult stem cells which are able to become any kind of cell in the human body.

These cells will then be used to grow the brain neurons that are killed by the disorder. When iPS cells were developed, scientists said they had potential to offer many of the benefits of embryonic stem cells without any of the ethical downsides.

The team at Oxford University is one of the first in the world to use IPS cells to implement a large-scale clinical investigation of a major disease. The iPS cells may enable researchers to produce limitless quantities of nerve cells for experimentation and for testing new drugs.
Skin cells will be taken from 1,000 patients with early stage Parkinson’s and turned into nerve cells carrying the disease.

"Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the UK and is set to become increasingly common as we live longer," said Dr Richard Wade-Martins, head of the Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre. "Once we have neurons from patients we can compare the functioning of cells taken from patients with the disease and those without to better understand why dopamine neurons die in patients with Parkinson's." ~ BBC News, Jul 13