Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center claim to have made a small molecule that stimulates nerve stem cells to begin maturing into nerve cells in culture. The researchers hope that someday their work might open the door for a potential new technology to grow a person's own nerve stem cells outside the body, stimulate them into maturity, and then re-implant them as working nerve cells to treat various diseases.

"This provides a critical starting point for neuro-regenerative medicine and brain cancer chemotherapy," Nature magazine quoted Dr. Jenny Hsieh, assistant professor of molecular biology, as saying.

She said that creation of the molecule helped her team uncover some of the biochemical steps that happen as nerve cells mature, and showed that large-scale screening of compounds could provide starting points for developing drugs to treat disorders like Huntington's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, traumatic brain injury or cancer...........

For the full report please go to MSRC: MS Research News : Stem Cell Research & Treatment : General Stem Cell Research : Neural Stem Cells - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=show&pageid=1826