A 'cocktail' recipe for brain cells - Harvard Gazette

"Harvard stem cell biologists have discovered a way to grow the type of brain cells that degenerate in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and suffer damage in spinal cord injuries. In a paper published in the journal eLife, researchers engineered a cocktail of molecular signals to coax some "progenitor cells" - precursors that can differentiate into other cell types - to generate corticospinal neurons (CSNs), brain cells vital to voluntary motor control."

"In ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, these neurons die for reasons that remain unknown and eventually patients become paralyzed. The disease afflicts some 30,000 people in the U.S. In spinal cord injuries, CSNs suffer damage when the long axons - which extend up to one meter long from the brain to the lower spinal cord - are crushed."

Harvard stem cell biologists engineered a cocktail of molecular signals to coax progenitor cells into generating corticospinal neurons (CSNs), neurons vital for voluntary motor control. The progenitor population is distributed throughout the brain as resident stem cells. The work establishes the first laboratory model for growing CSNs, enabling research and potential regeneration for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal cord injury. In ALS, CSNs die for unknown reasons, ultimately causing paralysis and affecting about 30,000 people in the U.S. In spinal cord injuries, CSNs are damaged when long axons are crushed; about 300,000 Americans live with such injuries. Progenitors are multipotent stem-cell lineages.

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