Create brain cells from urine

The water that humans throw out of their bodies daily can become a source of brain cells for scientific research.

>>>A breakthrough in transforming skin cells into brain cells

Dr. Duanqing Pei - a specialist in cell biology and director of the Guangzhou Institute of Biophysics and Health in China - and colleagues from many research institutions have found a way to turn urine into human cells Brain.

Illustration of a neuron. (Photo: Science Daily)

Nature says Pei's group turns cells in urine into original neurons. Then the original neuron will turn into brain cells. Scientists have found ways to turn cells in the skin, blood into brain cells. But the team claims that urine cells are more abundant than cells in the skin and blood. Moreover, their brain cell production rate is also larger than other brain cell production techniques.

The achievements of Dr. Pei and colleagues are of great significance in the research of neurodegenerative diseases (such as memory loss or paralysis). In the future scientists can create a large amount of neurons to study without having to take stem cells from human fetuses to create brain cells. Taking stem cells from the fetus is controversial because it encounters many objections.

In addition, a part of stem cells can develop into cancer cells. The same risk does not exist if humans use cells in the urine.

"The advantage of the new technique is that you can get urine from people. For example, taking urine from children is much easier than taking blood from their bodies , " said Marc Lalande, an expert. neurological diseases of the University of Connecticut in the US, comments.