Parkinson’s artificial brain bank

Researches underway to help patients regain normal function:

Stem cell Researchers in Oxford have begun creating a bank of artificially grown brain cells from Parkinson’s patients, BBC news has learned. They are using a new stem cell technique that allows them to turn a small piece of skin from the patient into a small piece of brain.

This is the first time this has been done in a large-scale study aimed at finding cures for the disease.

Researchers say they can analyse nerve cells as they start to deteriorate.

The first batch of nerve cells have been grown from a 56-year-old Oxfordshire man, Derek Underwood.

He had to take early retirement because of the progression of the disease.

Underwood will be the first of 50 patients whose skin cells will be grown into brain cells as part of a five year study. According Dr Richard Wade Martins of Oxford University, who is leading the study, the aim is to build up a “brain bank” which will enable researchers to study how the disease develops in unprecedented detail.