Isolation and culture of precursor cells from the adult human spinal cord

Our group recently provided evidence for the presence of neural stem cells and/or progenitor cells in the adult human spinal cord. In this chapter, we review materials and methods to harvest high-quality samples of thoracolumbar, lumbar, and sacral adult human spinal cord from brain-dead patients who had agreed to donate their bodies to science for therapeutic and scientific advances. The methods to culture precursor cells from the adult human spinal cord are also described.