A New Tool for Understanding ALS: Patients' Brain Cells

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have transformed skin cells from patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , into brain cells affected by the progressive, fatal disease and deposited those human-made cells into the first public ALS cell library, enabling scientists to better study the disease. Using a genetic engineering technique that causes adult skin cells to transform into "pluripotent" cells, otherwise known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which can take the form of many different cells found in other parts of the body, "we make brain cells out of the patient's own skin," said Jeffrey Rothstein, M.D., Ph.D., who directs the Brain Science Institute and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research.

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