29 Aug 2015

Reprogramming cells

From This Way Up, 12:40 pm on 29 August 2015
Bronwen Connor.

Bronwen Connor. Photo: Supplied.

Bronwen Connor and her team at the University of Auckland are building on work done by the Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka.

She's looking for ways to reprogram human cells with the aim or treating brain injuries and diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's.

Bronwen and her team can take a donor's skin cell and reprogramme it into a brain stem cell, raising the prospect of easier stem cell therapy free of regulatory constraints.