Scientists turn skin cells into nerves

[Guest guest]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1960000/1960764.stm

Scientists in Norway have for the first time managed to turn one sort of human

cell into another.

Conventional scientific wisdom has been once a skin cell, always a skin cell.

All the evidence has been that nerve

cells can only produce other nerve cells, muscle cells only produce other muscle

cells, and so on. But researchers at

the University of Oslo have turned the conventional view on its head.

'New treatments'

Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the scientists describe how they

used chemicals found in the body to

're-program' skin cells, and turn them into nerves and immune cells. They

suggest their research could eventually lead

to new treatments for diseases such as diabetes, stroke and Parkinson's without

the need for stem cells and the ethical

problems associated with them.

They took skin cells and grew them in liquid containing chemicals which are made

by nerves. The skin cells started to

look like nerves, and started activating genes which nerves use. When the cells

divided, the new cells still looked

like nerves. Similar changes occurred when the researchers put skin cells in

with chemicals made by immune cells.

'Exciting'

Although they have not yet checked that the new, re-programmed skin cells

function as nerves or immune cells, they say

their discovery potentially points the way to new medical treatments which carry

the same promise as stem cell

treatments without the ethical complications.

If ordinary adult cells really can be re-programmed in this way, there is no

reason in theory why cells from skin or

hair could not eventually be used to replace damaged brain tissue, or rebuild a

defective organ.

Other researchers have described the finding as 'exciting', though emphasising

that any medical treatments lie in the

future. The Oslo researchers plan to check how well their new cells function.

Other scientists will doubtless be

trying to replicate these early but exciting findings.

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Good health & long life,

Greg ,

http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au