Mouse, Heal Thyself: Therapeutic cloning from a mouse’s own cells
Scientists have treated mice that have a Parkinson’s disease–like condition by making new neurons from each mouse’s own skin cells.
The work demonstrates the potential of therapeutic cloning for replacing damaged neurons in people who have Parkinson’s.
The individual steps of the process have each been done before in mice: cloning skin cells to make early embryos, extracting stem cells from the embryos, converting these embryonic stem cells into the right kind of nerve cells, and implanting the nerve cells into the mouse brains.