Northern Michigan's News LeaderHealthy Living: Skin Cells as Stem Cells

Healthy Living: Skin Cells as Stem Cells

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Stem cells could hold the key to the treatment and cure of more than 70 major diseases and conditions. Robyn Haines takes us inside one lab that's taking stem cell technology another step into the future in today's Healthy Living.

 

Doctor Deepak Srivastava and Doctor Sheng Ding are two of the many minds at Gladstone Institute, using not adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells...but your own skin cells to repair bodies from the inside out.

 

Doctor Srivastava is taking adult skin cells, and turning them into beating heart cells.  It's called direct reprogramming. The same approach could be used to repair spinal cord injuries and practically any other part of the body.

 

Doctor ding has transformed the adult skin cells into neurons that are capable of transmitting brain signals. They hope this could reverse the effects of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and stroke.

 

Doctors say because they're using a patient's own skin cells, there's little to no chance of rejection. These skin cells could also be used to test new drugs and each patient's possible response to those drugs, allowing doctors to better personalize medicine.