With CRISPR, Scientists Make Neurons From Fibroblasts

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This is good news - making new, healthy neurons from Fibroblasts (simple connective cells that are all around the body). This type of research could lead to better treatments for brain disorders it seems.

Best known as a gene-editing tool, CRISPR has also been rejiggered to serve as a transcriptional manipulator, tuning gene activity. Duke University’s Charles Gersbach and colleagues report in the September issue of Cell Stem Cell that they have used this approach to switch on three transcription factors in mouse embryonic fibroblasts and turn those cells into neurons.

The method offers an alternative to the standard conversion process of bringing in these transcription factors via a viral vector.

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I do not think that what we suffer from is the lack of neurons or neuronal death rather the timing and wiring of how these neurons communicate. Our genes play a role in everything… I have stopped saying “they” and I am now saying “my genetics”.

This disease is so complex that I believe it will be one of the last diseases to be cured.