CALIFORNIA: A Californian team say they have managed to convert human skin cells directly into functioning brain cells, reported BBC News. The scientists manipulated the process by which DNA is transcribed within foetal skin cells to create cells which behaved like neurons. The technique had previously been demonstrated in mice, says the report in Nature. It could be used for neurological research, and might conceivably be used to create brain cells for transplant. The scientists used genetically modified viruses to introduce four different “transcription factors” into foetal skin cells. These transcription factors play a role in the “reading” of DNA and the encoding of proteins within the cell. They found the introduction of these four transcription factors had the effect of switching a small portion of the skin cells into cells which functioned like neurons. Marius Wernig, an assistant professor of pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, was one of the researchers. He believes the immediate application will be in modeling diseases, whereby skin cells from a patient with a known neurological condition could be used to produce new brain cells for research. The technique might one day also be used to create new brain cells which could be transplanted into patients with neurological disorders, he said.
