Recreated Stem cells from the deceased patients study present-day illnesses

Research scientists have developed a novel method to re-create brain and intestinal stem cells from patients who died decades ago, using DNA from stored blood samples to study the potential causes of debilitating illnesses such as inflammatory bowel disease. Stem Cells Translational Medicine could yield new therapies for people who suffer from aggressive motor-neuron and gut-related conditions that proved fatal to the deceased patients who long-ago volunteered their blood samples. By using a deceased patient’s stored blood samples, researchers found that they can develop stem cells known as iPSCs in a petri dish, essentially reanimating diseased cells from patients long after they have died. This approach allows the researchers to connect the dots between a deceased patient’s symptoms, genetic information contained in DNA and the behavior of stem cells in the lab. This, in turn, enables investigators to study the biological mechanisms behind diseases and potentially design new therapies. The technique also allows physicians to replace invasive biopsy procedures typically required of living patients to create iPSC cells.