Create brain cells from the skin

Scientists pioneer in cloning technology have created brain cells from the skin, paving the way for better treatments for neuropathy.

>>>Transform human skin cells into brain cells

Scientists at the Rehabilitation Medical Center in Edinburgh have achieved such a breakthrough thanks to the technology used to create Dolly sheep. They created brain cells from patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and some other neurological diseases.

Scientist Ian Wilmut next to Dolly sheep.

From the patient's fragments, scientists create neurons that carry the same gene in the patient's brain.

'Neurons can tell us a lot about the neurological condition of a patient while we can't poke needles into the head to get the patient's brain cells to study ,' said Professor Charles french - Constant, director of the center, said.

'However, we found another way. We just need to take a patient's skin sample to create stem cells and then direct these stem cells to grow into nerve cells. In short, we created the brain from the skin. In the future, we can create liver, heart and other organs that are normally difficult to sample biopsies'.

Now scientists are focused on applying this technology to cure some neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and motor neuron.