A neural stem cell is a single cell with the ability to proliferate, to self-renew over the lifetime of the organism, to generate a large number of clonally-related progeny and to replace limited numbers of neural cells in the adult brain. Recently, several research teams have reported that stem cells obtained from human bone marrow can be induced to differentiate into cells of neuronal and glial phenotype, both in vitro and in vivo. Preliminary results show that umbilical cord blood is a more abundant, readily accessible source of neural precursors than bone marrow. Through isolation, expansion and differentiation of neural stem cells from cord blood, it may be possible to provide enough neural precursors to treat, through transplantation, a variety of neurological deficits induced by neurodegenerative disease, genetic deficit, or injury. This Phase I research program proposes to isolate and characterize neural precursors from the heterogeneous population of mononuclear cells, which comprise umbilical cord blood. The optimal conditions for isolating and differentiating these cells into mature neural cells will be determined. Finally, it will be shown that the neural precursor cells can produce recovery on tests of motor and cognitive function in an animal model of brain injury. The success of directing stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood into a neural phenotype has important implications for the therapeutic potential of stem cells in neural transplantation in humans.
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