The cells were taken from skin and bone marrow of diseased patients and re-programmed to behave like cells from days-old embryos. The subjects, whose ages ranged from one month to 57-years-old, suffered from a range of conditions from Down Syndrome to Parkinson's disease.
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, MA, produced genes or genetic components for 10 different diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Type I diabetes, Huntington's disease and two forms of muscular dystrophy.
The findings will help researchers unfold the workings of these diseases, enabling them to study the processes that take place as cells that carry a condition's genetic seeds develop and age. Researchers around the world can gain access to these lines for a fee.
Researchers are now trying to make insulin-producing pancreatic cells and immune cells from the new stem cells.
The research is published in the journal Cell.
