Researchers
create “Huntington’s disease in a dish” to enable search for treatment
(June 29, 2015) Johns Hopkins researchers, working with an international consortium, say they have generated stem cells from skin cells from a person with a severe, early-onset form of Huntington’s disease (HD), and turned them into neurons that degenerate just like those affected by the fatal inherited disorder.
(June 29, 2015) Johns Hopkins researchers, working with an international consortium, say they have generated stem cells from skin cells from a person with a severe, early-onset form of Huntington’s disease (HD), and turned them into neurons that degenerate just like those affected by the fatal inherited disorder.
By creating
“HD in a dish,” the researchers say they have taken a major step forward in
efforts to better understand what disables and kills the cells in people with
HD, and to test the effects of potential drug therapies on cells that are
otherwise locked deep in the brain.
Although the autosomal dominant
gene mutation responsible for HD was identified in 1993, there is no cure. No
treatments are available even to slow its progression.