The UK's first major investigation of a disease using stem cells that does not involve the need to create and destroy embryos is being launched.

A Oxford University team will use induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, adult stem cells which have the ability to become any cell in the human body, to examine Parkinson's disease. These cells will be used to grow the brain neurons which die in those with the disorder, a conference will hear. IPS cells were developed in 2007. At the time, scientists said it had the potential to offer many of the advantages of embryonic stem cells without any of the ethical downsides. Three years on, it seems to be living up to that claim.

Compare and contrast

The team at Oxford University is among the first in the world to use IPS to carry out a large scale clinical investigation of a major disease. Parkinson's is currently poorly understood. Researchers will be taking skin cells from a 1,000 patients with early stage Parkinson's and turning them in to nerve cells carrying the disease to learn more about the brain disorder, the UK National Stem Cell Network annual science meeting will hear.

The technique is useful because it is difficult to obtain samples of diseased nerve tissue from patient biopsies. IPS enables the researchers to create limitless quantities of nerve cells to use in experiments and to test new drugs. "Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the UK and is set to become increasingly common as we live longer," said Dr Richard Wade-Martins, head of the Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre.

"Once we have neurons from patients we can compare the functioning of cells taken from patients with the disease and those without to better understand why dopamine neurons die in patients with Parkinson's."

The research is being funded by Parkinson's UK. The charity's director of research, Kieran Breen, described it as "vital research that will help us better understand the causes of this devastating condition and how it develops and progresses.

"We hope the work will pave the way for new and better treatments for people with Parkinson's in the future." There are about 120,000 people in the UK with Parkinson's.

July 13, 2010 (BBC News)