Cell transplantation therapies for spinal cord injury focusing on induced pluripotent stem cells

Stimulated by the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded for Shinya Yamanaka and Sir John Gurdon, there is an increasing interest in the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and reprograming technologies in medical science. While iPS cells are expected to open a new era providing enormous opportunities in biomedical sciences in terms of cell therapies and regenerative medicine, safety-related concerns for iPS cell-based cell therapy should be resolved prior to the clinical application of iPS cells. In this review, the pre-clinical investigations of cell therapy for spinal cord injury (SCI) using neural stem/progenitor cells derived from iPS cells, and their safety issues in vivo, are outlined. We also wish to discuss the strategy for the first human trails of iPS cell-based cell therapy for SCI patients.