Doctor Nissan’s team at the Institut des cellules souches I-Stem (Evry) (I-Stem Stem Cell Institute) has discovered “a new group pf potential medicinal products to treat Progeria as well as cancers, thanks to iPS stem cells”.
Progeria is a rare genetic disease responsible for accelerated ageing in children with the condition and resulting in premature death between 13 and 16 years of age. The cell mechanisms causing this disease have so far been highlighted but no sufficiently effective medicinal product has been developed to date.
With iPS, scientists “have an unlimited quantity of model cells to test thousands of pharmacological compounds”. Professor Nissan’s team has thus screened 21,608 molecules and “has identified a new group of potentially effective molecules [1] for this condition”. These molecules could also prove to be interesting anti-cancer agents.
Thanks to iPS cells, this study “provides a therapeutic avenue for a serious disease. It also demonstrates the potential of iPS stem cells to provide invaluable disease cell models to promote our understanding of these conditions as well as screen for new medicinal products”.
Note from Gènéthique:
I-Stem is the Institut des cellules Souches pour le Traitement et l’Etude des maladies Monogéniques (Stem Cell Institute for the Treatment and Study of Monogenic Diseases), a French research and development laboratory dedicated to human stem cells. It comprises two research entities: an academic laboratory (Inserm/UEVE) and a private laboratory, CECS (Centre d’étude des cellules souches – Stem Cell Study Centre).
I-Stem (17/02/2016)