The weekly roundup - April 22nd

There was a lot of exciting University of California research news this past week. First the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug that could halt Multiple Sclerosis. We had previously spoken to neurologist Bruce Cree of the University of California, San Francisco about his work testing the new drug, called ocrelizumab. At the time, Cree explained that it actually targets B-cells in the human body, blocking the inflammation that drives the disease. He explained that most MS therapies in the past targeted T-cells, which often had serious side effects. "You can have profound immunological effects and clinical benefits by just targeting B-cells alone. And I think this is actually an important advance for multiple sclerosis because when you just target B-cells without affecting T-cells, you have less of a potential for adverse events due to broad spectrum immune suppression." Really, such great news considering this devastating disease affects hundreds of thousands of Americans and more than 2.3 million people worldwide. While at UCSF we visited neurologist Lauren Weiss, who has discovered a new way to study brain disorders. Basically, they are growing brain cells out of simple skin biopsies taken from patients with autism and other developmental problems. "We can grow those cells in a lab and then turn them into stem cells and ultimately in the cells of the brain. That’s a pretty amazing advance when you think about how challenging it is to study the human brain. Nobody wants to give you too much access to that!" Hear these and other stories about the latest research at the University of California. Subscribe to Science Today on iTunes or follow us on Soundcloud and Stitcher. Until next time, I’m Larissa Branin.