A seriously major break through for brain diseases and spinal/nerve injuries was announced today by the McKnight Brain Institute. While this is still in the animal research phase (rodents), it is something never before done with incredible potential. I have compiled a list of referrences here, here, and here.

The aim is to use adult stem cells from the patien to address brain and nerve damage. The breakthrough came by watching mice brain cells through the early stages of life to adulthood to identify the true precursor cells to brain cells. They hold out hope they can transfer this to humans. From the second reference source above:

Regenerative medicine scientists at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute have created a system in rodent models that for the first time duplicates neurogenesis – the process of generating new brain cells – in a dish.

Writing in today’s (June 13) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe a cell culture method that holds the promise of producing a limitless supply of a person’s own brain cells to potentially heal disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or epilepsy.
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If the discovery can translate to human applications, it will enhance efforts aimed at finding ways to use large numbers of a person’s own cells to restore damaged brain function, partially because the technique produces cells in far greater amounts than the body can on its own.
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A little more than a decade ago, scientists came to realize that the brain continues to produce small amounts of new cells even in adulthood, overturning the belief that people are born with a fixed amount of brain cells that must last them throughout their lives.
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“As far as regenerating parts of the brain that have degenerated, such as in Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and others of that nature, the ability to regenerate the needed cell type and placing it in the correct spot would have major impact,” said Dr. Eric Holland, a neurosurgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York who specializes in the treatment of brain tumors, but who is not connected to the research.

If this methodology can be translated into human therapies it would be another case where the embryonic stem cell research is being completely outpaced by the adult stem cell research.