What are some examples in which cells stored in the Coriell Cell Repositories have been useful?
There are very many examples of important successes that been accomplished using Coriell cells. A prime example is one of the first: Huntington’s disease. A team of scientists headed by Dr. Nancy Wexler went to Venezuela where an isolated village was found with a high incidence of Huntington’s. In 1979, cells were brought back to Coriell, cultures established and frozen, and distributed to scientists involved in the search for the Huntington’s gene. The gene was localized on chromosome 4 in 1984 using these cells, and in 1994 the gene itself was isolated. The task now is to learn exactly what the gene’s function is and to learn how to fix the defect. Other examples of genes that have been found using cells from the Coriell collections include ataxia telangiectasia, retinitis pigmentosa, cystic fibrosis, hypercholesterolemia, Alzheimer Disease, manic-depressive illness. These collections have become a part of the molecular genetic revolution and are very much at the center of the intern
