Pluripotent stem cell-derived neural cells show promise in spinal cord repair

Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine (UCSD; CA, USA) have reported that they have successfully created spinal cord neural stem cells (NSCs) from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) that are able to differentiate into a diverse population of cells capable of dispersing throughout the spinal cord, and can be maintained for long periods of time. In the study, which was published in Nature Methods, researchers grafted cultured hPSC-derived NSCs into injured spinal cords of rats. They reported that these grafts were rich with excitatory neurons, extended large numbers of axons over long distances, innervated their...