Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 9, 2026

Author Spotlight: Long-Term Spinal Cord Slice Culture for Advancing Spinal Cord Regeneration Therapies
Published on: April 12, 2024
Cell transplantation for spinal cord injury focusing on iPSCs
Masaya Nakamura1, Osahiko Tsuji, Satoshi Nori
1Keio University, School of Medicine, Department of Orthopedics, Tokyo, Japan. masa@a8.keio.jp
Introduction:
Reports of functional recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI) after the transplantation of neural stem cells (NSCs) derived from fetus/embryonic stem cells (ESCs), has raised great expectations for the successful clinical use of stem cell transplantation therapy. However, the ethical issues involved in destroying human embryos or fertilized oocytes to obtain NSCs have been a major obstacle to developing clinically useful stem cell sources, and the transplantation of stem cells isolated from other human embryonic tissues has not yet been developed for use in clinical applications.
Areas Covered:
Recently, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can serve as a source of cells for autologous transplantation, have been attracting a great deal of attention as a clinically viable alternative to stem cells obtained directly from tissues. In this review, the authors outline the neural induction of ESC/iPSC, their therapeutic efficacy in SCI and their safety in vivo.
Expert Opinion:
Although iPSCs offer great promise as the cell source for autologous transplantation for SCI, safety issues including tumorigenicity should be determined prior to the clinical trial.
More Related Videos
10:56Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in Experimental Contusive Model of Spinal Cord Injury
Published on: December 17, 2014
10:49Intraspinal Cell Transplantation for Targeting Cervical Ventral Horn in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
Published on: September 18, 2011
Related Concept Videos
iPS Cell Differentiation
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Somatic...
EPS and iPS Cells in Disease Research