Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy for Intractable Epilepsy

Stem cell therapies for treating or curing severe neurological disorders and intractable epilepsy are envisioned for regenerative medicine and neurology of the future. Studies of how the human nervous system develops from stem cells are yielding clues for how to direct pluripotent stem cells into specific neural and glial fates. Reagents and protocols to grow human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in xenofree conditions are now available. Transgenic technology has been developed using Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BACs) to force transcription factor expression in these cell lines, making it feasible to direct ESCs and iPSCs toward neural fates to derive functionally distinct classes of neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes comparable to the endogenous cells in different regions of the fetal brain and spinal cord. The remarkable progress in this field may lead to powerful new stem cell-based therapies for curing human neurological disorders and epilepsy. We review some of the major advantages of deriving specific cell types with this new technology, applications in basic research, and prospects for treating circuit abnormalities and intractable seizures in patients with epilepsy.