To find new treatments for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, scientists and drug companies are turning to stem cells.
Under a $15.4 million contract from the National Institute of Mental Health, Rusty Gage of the Salk Institute and Hongjun Song of Johns Hopkins University will lead a program to grow cells from patient volunteers for screening potential drugs.
Skin cells from the patients will be converted into stem cells and then into brain cells, providing a “disease in a dish” model of abnormal functioning. Potential drugs will be tested on the brain cells to examine their effectiveness in restoring normal function.
Two drug companies, Janssen Research & Development and Cellular Dynamics International, are also taking part in the program. They can use their results for their own drug development programs.
Assessments of a patient’s state of mind rely relies heavily on the patient’s own self-reporting of complex inner experiences, which can be flawed because of the condition that needs to be treated, Light said
Umpf, the science of these days… I am not sure if I should be happy or sad knowing that you can get so much money with such shady motivation.
Hope something comes out of it nevertheless - for that the motivation need not matter.
As long as they don’t use embryonic stem cells I am all for it. I don’t think I could take something from embryonic stem cells - I think I would end up in a straight jacket for the rest of my life.
Sounds like a shot in the dark to me, why can’t they just use real complete brains? And all this excitement about exercise and computer games…please guys focus on getting new drugs out, we are suffering here, stop ■■■■■■■ around.
Maybe I’m missing something, brain cells in a dish can’t respond to you and tell you “oh the delusions are gone”. Wouldn’t using real volunteers be more accurate?
Btw I don’t mind participating in drug trials, why don’t they just use the method they always have? It seems to be working so far and it is a very true to reality method of analysis.
Don’t you need a diseased brain to discover whether a new medication works. Brain cells in a dish dont have that complexity as in interaction between neurotransmitters and electrical activity between different brain regions. They’re just brain cells in a dish, no connectivity or relevance to the human pathology.
No - but what they are doing is taking brain cells from people who have schizophrenia - measuring how they work (e.g. how much dopamine, glutamate, etc. they are producing) and then adding the different medication possibilities to the cells to see how they react - do they slow down the production of dopamine, etc. - so that gives them a quick idea of how the drug might work in the person.
The researchers have a good idea of what they need to do to our brains to do differently - and they are testing to see if these new drug targets at least past that first hurdle of seeing if it corrects the issue (e.g. too much dopamine as in schizophrenia) and if it does - then they would continue on with other tests with that new drug target/ candidate.
Its a good start is what it is. Sure - eventually testing will be needed on people, but if you can do quick tests on just the brain cells - thats a good start.
@SzAdmin, @eduvigis -> you are both right. Stem cells and brains in a dish cannot replace live human brains, but there are ethical concerns about testing substances directly on humans. Stem cells allow for screening of many many drugs and remove those who can visibly harm the neurons, or keep those who seem to improve the functionality. It’s a method to speed up drug discovery. But ultimately, the remaining (promising) drugs WILL have to be tested on humans.
I like that argument for the study much better than the one the researchers themselves mention. But we got to be realistic here, at the end of the day, valorisation of proposed studies is a bit of a handwaving affair up front. These people have their expertise and want to keep running their labs, making a living, and if a fallacious argument gets them the cash then so be it.
You may have a point @flybottle, but believe it or not, our destiny is in the hands of these people. They are indeed motivated by money, but also by fame, and the latter doesn’t come easily, they must produce solid results. So I trust their judgment more than I trust mine, to be honest
My destiny isn’t. But please don’t take it the wrong way, I am all for more research. Just get an itch when I see some fishy argument. And as said, it may even be considered a good thing if you don’t need to argue that well for your study to get the money - that just means there is lots of money available for research.
A stem cell is kind of like a “Base” cell. It can be taken at any stage in life. The only stem cell treatment that has actually ever worked as of today is stem cells taken from adults. Embryonic stem cells are taken from embryos (a very early stage of a human beings growth) This embryonic research ends in the termination of the human being that was growing.
I have no idea if it is going to help or not - That is above my pay grade. The only thing I am saying is that I don’t think they should use embryonic stem cells.
I really don’t care to get into this discussion. It was growing into an adult human being not Cat, not a Dog, not a Monkey a human being. If you can’t believe that than there is no hope for you. When the soul enters is up for discussion. As I stated earlier in the post “a very early stage of a human beings growth”
