It's not a rat's race for human stem cells grafted to repair spinal cord injuries
The findings are published in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation . "The NSCs retained an intrinsic human rate of maturation despite being placed in a traumatic rodent environment," said Paul Lu, PhD, associate professor of neurosciences and lead author of the study. "That's a finding of great importance in planning for human clinical trials." Neural stem cells differentiate into neurons and glia or support cells. Researchers like Lu and colleague, Mark Tuszynski, MD, PhD, professor of neuroscience and director of the UC San Diego Translational Neuroscience Institute, have explored their potential as a sort of patch and remedy for spinal cord injuries, implanting NSCs derived from induced pluripotent stem cells into animal models of spinal cord injuries to repair damage. In previously published animal studies, Lu and Tuszynski have shown NSCs can survive implantation and make new connections, even beginning to restore limited p