Researchers from Canada produced nerve cells from blood cells, cells that are relatively easy to obtain and preserve. It is possible that in the future it will be possible to restore the nervous system from the patient's own blood cells
Researchers from Canada have succeeded for the first time in transforming mature human blood cells into different types of nerve cells from the peripheral and central nervous system. The technique is also possible for frozen blood and this has tremendous potential from a research and medical point of view in the context of neurological diseases. This is also a breakthrough in the field of personal medicine and the hope is that in the future it will be possible to diagnose neurological diseases ahead of time on the basis of a blood test.
In the abstract of the article, the researchers, led by Jong-Hee Lee, write that the clinical availability of direct conversion of cells from one type to another depends on obtaining tissues from the patient's body that are easy to collect, store and treat for reprogramming.
In the first step, the researchers created induced stem cells that became pre-neural cells. These cells differentiated into different types of nerve cells including glial cells and other nerve subtypes including dopamine producing cells and cells of the peripheral nervous system. This achievement may allow the production of nerve cells for research and the use of massive scanning systems to discover drugs and when they can be used for healing, it will be possible to develop the nerve cells from the patient's own blood.
