Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Commentary
  • Published:

Stem cells for Parkinson disease and ALS: replacement or protection?

Using stem cells to generate new neurons and replace those lost in diseases such as Parkinson and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis would be a major breakthrough, but significant hurdles remain before this goal can be realized. Instead, a more practical short-term approach may be to use stem cells to protect neurons dying in these diseases.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Tai, Y.-T. & Svendsen, C.N. Curr. Opin. Pharmacol. 4, 98–104 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Thomson, J.A. et al. Science 282, 1145–1147 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Bjorklund, L.M. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 2344–2347 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Kim, J.H. et al. Nature 418, 50–56 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kerr, D.A. et al. J. Neurosci. 23, 5131–5140 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Wichterle, H., Lieberam, I., Porter, J.A. & Jessell, T.M. Cell 110, 385–397 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Doetsch, F., Caille, I., Lim, D.A., Garcia-Verdugo, J.M. & Alvarez-Buylla, A. Cell 97, 703–716 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Imura, T., Kornblum, H.I. & Sofroniew, M.V. J. Neurosci. 23, 2824–2832 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Gill, S.S. et al. Nat. Med. 9, 589–595 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Ourednik, J., Ourednik, V., Lynch, W.P., Schachner, M. & Snyder, E.Y. Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 1103–1110 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Clement, A.M. Science 302, 113–117 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Olanow, C.W. et al. Ann. Neurol. 54, 403–414 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the NETRP program at the DOD for supporting this meeting, and the presenters (J. Thomson, S.C. Zhang, J. Rothstein, M. Sofroniew, M. Bohn, A. Blesch, E. Snyder, R. Brown and S. Landis) for their stimulating discussion and comments on this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Svendsen, C., Langston, J. Stem cells for Parkinson disease and ALS: replacement or protection?. Nat Med 10, 224–225 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0304-224

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0304-224

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing