'Brain bank' boosts Parkinson's research
A "BRAIN bank" of artificially grown nerve cells is being developed by British researchers studying Parkinson's disease.
Scientists are using a new stem cell technique to transform ordinary donated skin cells into neurons. An initial batch of nerve cells has been grown from a 56-year-old Parkinson's patient.
Derek Underwood is the first of 50 patients whose skin cells will be turned into brain cells as part of a five-year study.
Dr Richard Wade Martins, from Oxford University, said: "The brain is an inaccessible organ and you can't get bits of people's brain to study very easily. But what we have here is a disease in a dish that are just like Derek's brain cells but are accessible and can be produced in unlimited quantities."
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