In a precedent move to address the percolating concern of Parkinson's disease, a team of British researchers from Oxford is developing a "Brain bank" collecting skin cells from Parkinson's patients.

As part of a five-year-long study, first of its kind, the team is using new stem cell technique that would allow skin cells taken from a patient to convert into brain cells. The first lot of the nerve cells is reported to have been taken from a 56-year-old Oxfordshire man, Derek Underwood.

As per reports, Mr. Underwood has become the first among 50 patients to be part of this unique study. The team, led by Dr. Michelle Hu of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, will be able to observe the gradual deterioration of the brain cells probably for the first time so that any possible treatment can be developed for Parkinson’s.

Confirming the news, Dr. Richard Wade Martins, from Oxford University, said: "The brain is an inaccessible organ and you can't get bits of people's brain to study very easily. But what we have here is a disease in a dish that is just like Derek’s brain cells but is accessible and can be produced in unlimited quantities”.