14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientists with the Columbia University Medical Center detail their work converting adult human skin cells into specific neurons previously documented to control appetite.
The researchers claim their achievement to be a world first. What's more, they say that their laboratory-grown neurons have the potential to pave the way for the development of new methods to control weight, even fight obesity.
Turning skin cells into neurons
To grow neurons that regulate appetite in laboratory conditions, the Columbia University Medical Center specialists started by collecting human skin cells and coercing them into becoming stem cells.
The stem cells obtained in this manner were then exposed to certain molecular signals that were administered in a very precise order. In response to these stimuli, the stem cells became neurons. The transformation process was completed in 30 days.
True, such experiments are quite common in this day and age. However, the Columbia University Medical Center experts claim to be the first scientists ever to grow neurons that control appetite from skin cells.
How the lab-made neurons could help fight obesity
In their paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researcher Dieter Egli and colleagues argue that neurons like the ones they obtained from human skin cells can serve to test the efficiency of new obesity therapies.
Specifically, the scientists believe that such laboratory-made neurons can help shed new light on the molecular abnormalities that correlate with obesity and on how having a faulty nervous system influences people's weight.
Besides, the specialists imagine using such neurons to test the efficiency of drugs designed to fight obesity by controlling people's appetite. By growing neurons from a patient's own skin cells, it might even be possible to predict how a certain individual would respond to such drugs.
“The ability to make this type of neuron brings us one step closer to the development of new treatments for obesity,” said researcher Susan L. Solomon. “The cells will allow us to evaluate potential obesity drugs in a way never before possible,” added specialist Rudolph L. Leibel.