Medical School
Twin Cities
Spinal cord injury is devastating to both patients and their families, and there are currently no clinically available treatments. Recent research has indicated that various stem cell therapies produce functional benefits in spinal cord injured rodents. However, the optimal cell transplantation therapy has yet to be defined. Recent advances in cellular engineering have demonstrated that induced pluripotent (iPS) cells can be generated from adult mammalian fibroblasts and subsequently differentiated down a neural pathway. These cells have a distinct advantage to embryonic stem cells in that they can be harvested from an autologous source, and also to adult stem cells in that they can be produced in large quantities. Thus, they may provide an ideal source for cell transplantation. This research will attempt to determine if regionally specific neural progenitor cells (NPCs) differentiated from iPS cell rescue function in moderate spinal cord injuries.