The New York Times (10/13, A10, Kolata, Subscription Publication) reports that according to research published online Oct. 12 in the journal Nature, “researchers created what they call Alzheimer’s in a Dish – a petri dish with human brain cells that develop the telltale structures of Alzheimer’s disease.”
By so doing, “they resolved a longstanding problem of how to study Alzheimer’s and search for drugs to treat it; the best they had until now were mice that developed an imperfect form of the disease.” Essentially, investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital grew human neurons in a gel. The neurons had been given “genes for Alzheimer’s disease.”
Related Links:
— “Breakthrough Replicates Human Brain Cells for Use in Alzheimer’s Research,” Gina Kolata, New York Times, October 12, 2014.