Researchers at Harvard used cells from adults with genetic diseases to make nine stem cell lines (induced pluripotent stem, or iPS cells) capable of being turned into any type of cell or tissue) that have the genes for those diseases.

These disease-specific cell lines (including Down syndrome, Type 1 diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease) provide a new way for researchers to study diseases: by cultivating the iPS cells into specific cell types needed to study a disease–dopamine neurons in the case of Parkinson’s or pancreatic cells for diabetes–and find out how those cells then go wrong. The cell cultures could also be used for testing disease treatments.

Each cell line was made by taking skin cells (or in one case, bone marrow biopsies) of adult patients with the disease, and using the viral vector method of making iPS cells (developed in 2006 at the University of Tokyo) to reprogram those cells into iPS cells.

Harvard plans to produce 50 to 200 cell lines each year for researchers around the world to use.

See Also “Nerve cells made from elderly patient’s skin cells”