Huntington’s Disease and Stem Cells

News from the Cardiff School of Biosciences promises new avenues for research into Huntington’s Disease:

An international consortium, including scientists from the Cardiff School of Biosciences, has taken cells from Huntington’s Disease patients and generated human brain cells that develop aspects of the disease in the laboratory. The cells and the new technology will speed up research into understanding the disease and also accelerate drug discovery programmes aimed at treating this terminal, genetic disorder. [NewsWales]

The research has been published in this paper on the Cell Stem Cell website, the summary of which promises that, “The HD iPSC collection represents a unique and well-characterized resource to elucidate disease mechanisms in HD and provides a human stem cell platform for screening new candidate therapeutics.” It’s a fascinating research project, and well worth further investigation.