PATIENT-SPECIFIC STEM CELLS

Features •Provides a comprehensive overview of the status of the field of patients derived induced pluripotent stem cells •Covers the use of cardiac cells •Presents drug toxicity analysis as a working example •Supplies extensive references at the end of each chapter to enhance further study Summary One of the biggest challenges faced in medical research had been to create accurate and relevant models of human disease. Several good animal models have been developed to understand the pathophysiology. However, not all of them reflect the human disorder, a classic case being Usher’s syndrome where the mutant mice do not have the same visual and auditory defects that patients face. Others have been even more difficult to model due to the multi-factorial nature of the condition and due to the lack of discovery of a single causative gene such as age-related macular degeneration or Alzheimer’s syndrome.