Back to Parent Page
Articles

Stem Cells

HomeStem Cells
Stem Cells

Understanding New Brain Research Models

Scientists can now grow living human brain tissue in lab dishes and in animals, creating organoids, neural transplants, and chimeras. While these models will help us better understand the brain in health and disease, they also raise thorny ethical questions that will only get thornier in the future.
Stem Cells

Troubling Regulatory Standards

Neuroethics Viewpoint

Our neuroethics columnist addresses a concerning new trend of reporting brain research results through the popular media rather than in peer reviewed journals.
Stem Cells

Build a Better Brain Model

Organoids, chimeric cells, and other new experimental biotech offer us ways to study things we've never had access to before and ethical questions anew.
Man looking at eye chart
Stem Cells

Stem-Cell Therapies Show Early Promise for Vision Loss

Three early-stage clinical trials use stem cells to save the cells that feed starving photoreceptors in age-related macular degeneration.
flasks in a lab
Stem Cells

Unlocking the Diseases of the Brain

Our writer was introduced to the intriguing concept of a "mini-brain" by three scientists who know it intimately, at a presentation on “Unlocking Diseases of the Brain with Stem Cells,” at the headquarters of the New York Stem Cell Foundation.
Stem Cells

Modeling Rare Neurological Disease

A new technique that uses induced pluripotent stem cells from people with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease has told researchers a lot about that disease and offers proof of concept for its use for people with other diseases.
cartoon stem cell
Stem Cells

Your Brain Under the Microscope: The Promise of Stem Cells

Until recently, scientists primarily worked with two kinds of stem cells from animals and humans: embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic “somatic” or “adult” stem cells. Scientists are just now beginning to improve their understanding of a third kind: induced pluripotent stem cells. Our authors describe how they were discovered, what they are, and why a growing number of researchers and clinicians believe that they may be one of the keys in helping address various brain disorders.
Cartoon of axons linking to neuron
Stem Cells

The Promise and the Reality of Stem-Cell Therapies for Neurodegenerative Diseases

Jonathan D. Glass, M.D., is leading a clinical trial testing the safety of using adult stem cells to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that remains untreatable. This trial, along with others like it, is just the beginning of a time-intensive process necessary to determine whether the benefits of stem-cell treatments—if there prove to be any—outweigh the risks. See also Commentary on this article, by Vassilis E. Koliatsos, M.D., and Leyan Xu, M.D., Ph.D.
Stem Cells

Commentary on “The Promise and the Reality of Stem-Cell Therapies for Neurodegenerative Diseases”

Vassilis E. Koliatsos, M.D., and Leyan Xu, M.D., Ph.D., describe the research leading up to Dr. Jonathan Glass' clinical trial, which tests the safety of using stem cells to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. See also Glass's article describing his research.

Explore More

Sign up for monthly email updates on neuroscience and society topics, grants, and upcoming events

Subscribe