The new technology consists of taking cells from skin and reprogramming them so that they become stem cells – cells that are capable of proliferating and differentiating into almost all tissue types."
— Dr Ludovic Vallie
How do you study a human disease that has no equivalent in animals and where the human cells in question are so hard to grow outside the body they cannot be tested in the laboratory? The answer, until now, was with great difficulty. But by using a new stem cell technique, that is set to change.
Dr Ludovic Vallier, who holds an MRC Senior Fellowship in the Anne McLaren Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine, Department of Surgery at Cambridge in collaboration with Professor David Lomas (Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Department of Medicine), works on a group of devastating genetic diseases affecting the liver.
“We target metabolic diseases of the liver, diseases such as alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency. It’s one of the most common single genetic disorders and the protein it affects – which is only produced by the liver – is really important because it controls activity of elastase in the lung. Without this control, people develop serious lung problems and the disease also affects the liver, so these patients develop liver failure,” he explained.
Image: Stem cells Credit: Candy Cho
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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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