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Stem cells for Parkinson disease and ALS: replacement or protection?

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Using stem cells to generate new neurons and replace those lost in diseases such as Parkinson and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis would be a major breakthrough, but significant hurdles remain before this goal can be realized. Instead, a more practical short-term approach may be to use stem cells to protect neurons dying in these diseases.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the NETRP program at the DOD for supporting this meeting, and the presenters (J. Thomson, S.C. Zhang, J. Rothstein, M. Sofroniew, M. Bohn, A. Blesch, E. Snyder, R. Brown and S. Landis) for their stimulating discussion and comments on this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, 53705, Wisconsin, USA

    Clive N Svendsen

  2. Parkinson's Institute, Sunnyvale, 94089, California, USA

    J William Langston

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  1. Clive N Svendsen
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  2. J William Langston
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Svendsen, C., Langston, J. Stem cells for Parkinson disease and ALS: replacement or protection?. Nat Med 10, 224–225 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0304-224

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