Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, the UC San Francisco-affiliated Gladstone Institutes and colleagues report a game-changing advance in stem cell science: the creation of long-term, self-renewing, primitive neural precursor cells from human embryonic stem cells that can be directed to become many types of neuron without increased risk of tumor formation.

In papers  published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Kang Zhang, professor of ophthalmology and human genetics at UC San Diego and Sheng Ding, a Gladstone Institutes researcher and professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, reveal novel and safer methods not only for transforming embryonic stem cells into large numbers of brain cells with multiple uses, but also for transforming adult skin cells into so-called neural stem cells-cells that are just beginning to become brain cells.

See story at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

See story at Gladstone Institutes.