Endocrine Abstracts

Cellular replacement therapy has already shown clinical efficacy in human patients with Parkinson's' and Huntington's diseases. However, this currently relies on a continuous supply of tissue from early first trimester human foetuses and therefore it will be difficult to translate into a widespread therapy. Neural stem cells are self-renewing cells found in both the developing and adult nervous system that can be expanded ex vivo in defined medium and differentiated into all the cell types of the central nervous system. These cells may therefore have therapeutic potential as a renewable source of implantable cells.

Our group has been isolating, expanding and transplanting neural stem/progenitor cells from developing rat forebrain, mensencephalon and spinal cord for over ten years. All three populations can be readily expanded and subsequently implanted into the adult nervous system where they display neuronal differentiation, migration, integration into the host brain, and some functional improvement in various animal models of human neurodegenerative disorders and traumatic brain injury. In addition, we have been examining the extent to which neural stem cells in the adult human brain are influenced by various neurodegenerative processes, pharmacological interventions, and vascular changes. We will present an overview of neural stem cell biology, examine various neural stem cell populations, and compare the ability of various neural stem cell populations to affect repair in the damaged nervous system