HOW WE CAN USE INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS TO TREAT CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE IN THE FUTURE?

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Induced pluripotent stem cells are cells that can differentiate into other cells and then if they are being used to treat diseases then the stem cells will replace the diseased cells and help the patient recover from that disease. We can get these cells by taking a sample of skin or blood, we can then use that and add four specific genes (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 andc-Myc) (1) and then we must wait thirty days for the stem to produce. When they are finally produced, we can then inject the pluripotent stem cells back into the patient. They should replace the original diseased cells and hopefully cure the disease that the patient had.  This is very hard to get right because there is a 0.1% chance that we will get stem cells. We can take 50000 regular cells and only get 50 stem cells.

Prion disease is more commonly known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. This is a fatal disease that can be inherited and that is caused by prions in the brain. A prion is a misfolded protein. The pathology of this disease is the prion. As prions replicate they align with nerve cells and cause neurodegeneration to the patient. (2)This disease will cause inevitable death. This disease can affect many people, some of these include: adults aged 45-65, people who eat cow beef that has mad cow disease, 1 in 9 million people whose parents had the disease and people who had growth hormone treatment. The hormones they got were extracted from deceased people who had the disease.(3). The symptoms of this disease are difficulty walking, dizziness and slurred speech. The causes of this disease are the prions that are stored in the nerve tissue of the brain infect a cluster of cells and causes holes in the brain and that is what makes this disease so fatal. There is no treatment for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at the moment but scientists at the national prion clinic are doing heavy research into finding