(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - Stem cell technology has long offered the hope of regenerating tissue to repair broken or damaged neural tissue. Findings from a team of UC Davis investigators have brought this dream a step closer by developing a method to generate functioning brain cells that produce myelin - a fatty, insulating sheath essential to normal neural conduction.
"Our findings represent an important conceptual advance in stem cell research," said Wenbin Deng, principal investigator of the study and associate professor at the UC Davis Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine. "We have bioengineered the first generation of myelin-producing cells with superior regenerative capacity."
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