Frontiers of Neural Stem Cells

There were many great presentations at this stem cell conference that was the 2nd International Stem Cell Symposium hosted by the UCSF Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research.  In addition to talks in the areas of "Origin of Neural Stem Cells", "Building and Repairing Cortex", and "Generating New Neurons and Glial Cells", the last session of the symposium on "Stem Cell Models of Neurological Disease" had presentations with relevance toward potential new treatments for dopamine neuron replacement and protection in PD.  In particular, Ernest Arenas presented data, some of which will appear in a new paper in Cell Stem Cell, related to Wnt1a and Wnt5a increasing the efficiency of generating dopaminergic neurons from stem cells.  In particular, Wnt5a showed great promise for helping induce a midbrain dopaminergic phenotype, whereas Wnt1a appeared to help with dopamine neuron proliferation.  He also talked about new roles for oxysterols in this process.  Other talks in this session by Lorenz Studer and Ron McKay focused on, respectively, using iPSC approaches to model neurological disease and new neuroprotective repsonses that target injured dopamine neurons.  Clive Svendsen also talked about using iPSC reprogramming to model neurodegenerative diseases, and Kevin Eggan presented some very exciting new data on finding factors from chemical screening that could potentially replace viral vector-mediated introduction of iPSC reprogramming genes into adult somatic cells.  In all, this meeting reinforced the excitement for stem cell biology and regenerative medicine as still holding promise for characterizing and treating diseases, including PD.