Scientists have produced liver cells specific to different ethnic groups which could revolutionise the development of drugs to treat diseases.

The Edinburgh University-led study paves the way for a liver cells library to help work-out the reaction of drugs for different ethnicities.
Experts say the findings are important because in each ethnic group the liver processes drugs in different ways.
Some groups are more prone to adverse reactions than others.
The researchers have developed a way to create liver cells from adult skin taken from Caucasians and Native Americans.
The liver cells were created by manipulating the skin cells to resemble embryonic stem cells, which can change into different cells within the body.

The scientists are now hoping to create a library of cells to make drug development more efficient as liver cells currently used to test compounds are often of poor quality because they are taken from dead or donor tissue.
The donor cells have a low survive rate and fail to multiply, making them less reliable for drug testing.

'Adverse reactions'

The cell library would allow scientists to weed out chemical compounds that cause adverse reactions at a much earlier stage.
Gareth Sullivan, of the university's medical research council centre for regenerative medicine, said: "Different populations not only have varying prevalence of disease but there are also genetic differences with regards to how they process drugs.

"What we have been able to do will help drug discovery because it means we are able to represent different populations and make sure the drugs being developed do not have adverse reactions."
The research, which was carried out with the help of Harvard Medical School, is published in the journal, Hepatology.
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B..b..b..but I thought that we were all one race...the Yooman Race!?