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Bridging the gap from frog research to human therapy: A tale of neural differentiation in Xenopus animal caps and human pluripotent cells
Author(s) -
Sasai Yoshiki,
Ogushi Masatoshi,
Nagase Tomoko,
Ando Satoshi
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
development, growth and differentiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1440-169X
pISSN - 0012-1592
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-169x.2008.01010.x
Subject(s) - biology , induced pluripotent stem cell , regenerative medicine , neuroscience , neural development , bridging (networking) , medical research , basic research , embryonic stem cell , xenopus , microbiology and biotechnology , stem cell , genetics , computer science , gene , library science , computer network
Over the last decade, much progress has been made toward an understanding of the mechanism of regulation of neural differentiation. In this article, following a brief overview of neural induction research, I would like to discuss the potential contribution of basic embryological research to the progress of human therapeutic development in the present and future, focusing on the medical application of in vitro differentiation of neural tissues. This kind of linkage between basic and medical research will probably be strengthened even more by the recent emergence of human induced pluripotent stem cells. Human pluripotent stem cells are powerful tools for bridging the gap from our accumulated knowledge of embryology to regenerative medicine, as well as to a wide spectrum of medical and pharmaceutical research and development. In this commentary, I describe these issues with a particular emphasis on the contributions made by Japanese scientists.