Adult skin cells can be manipulated to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to produce motor neurons and astrocytes, cells at risk in ALS. This link below includes an informative webinar on a new research project being carried out by iPerian to use iPSCs to develop cell lines which could be used for new drug candidate screening.
http://www.alsa.org/news/archive/stem-cells-derived-from-skin.html
The ALS Association has awarded a one-year grant to iPierian to support the identification of a “cellular phenotype,” which represents differences in motor neurons or astroglial cells derived from ALS patients, versus healthy controls. This phenotype would be the basis for drug screening to identify potential disease-modifying drug candidates for ALS.
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