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Nature Medicine 12, 1237 - 1238 (2006)
doi:10.1038/nm1106-1237

Stem cells: the good, bad and barely in control

Christian T Carson1, Stefan Aigner1 & Fred H Gage1

  1. The authors are at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. e-mail: gage@salk.edu


The goal of replacing dying cells in Parkinson disease with stem cells is now brought a step closer to the clinic. A new protocol eases symptoms in a rat model of the disease, but also raises the concern that poorly differentiated cells have the potential to become tumorigenic (pages 1259–1268).


In principle, embryonic stem cells can be expanded and then differentiated into most cell lineages of a living organism—making them a virtually unlimited source for cell replacement therapy to treat degenerative disease or traumatic injury. In practice, however, it remains almost an art to coax human embryonic stem cells (HESCs) into generating specific cell types.

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