Wellcome Trust MRC Human Inducible Pluripotent Stem Cell Initiative

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As it becomes cheaper and faster to sequence the DNA of individuals in the population we are faced with two challenges. One is to discover which aspects of the genetic variation between individuals are compatible with good health and which are linked to increased risk of specific diseases. The other is that it is not always obvious why a particular genetic mutation causes a particular disease; if we knew the answer we would be better placed to devise new ways to treat that disease. A technique that can help us meet these challenges is to make stem cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, from small samples of the skin or blood of healthy and diseased individuals. By comparing the DNA of iPS cells with the way the cells behave when grown in the laboratory we can understand how variation in our DNA results in variation in cell behaviour and use this information to identify new disease mechanisms. The iPS cells and associated data that we generate will be freely available to researchers and doctors throughout the UK and will foster collaborations that will speed up the translation of research into improved diagnosis and treatment of disease.