Porter Neuroscience Research Center, Bethesda, USA

Ron MCKAY
NINDS, Porter Neuroscience Research Center, Bethesda, USA

 

The interest in stem cells revolves around the idea that development of tissues can understood and controlled. The work in our group is focused on the development and function of the central nervous system.
We have identified stem cells and made progress showing that our understanding of the basic aspects of development has strong links to tissue function and dysfunction. Very often in the public debate on the
clinical potential of stem cells in medicine a detailed analysis of restoration of function is not provided.
However, this information will be necessary for regenerative medicine to succeed. Our increasing ability to control the origin of neural architecture identifies key regulators controlling the development of neural networks. If the same basic mechanisms regulate early and mature neuronal functions, understanding the biology of neural stem cells may lead rapidly to fundamental new insights into problems as diverse as cancer and psychological plasticity.

 

Androutsellis-Theotokis A, Leker RR, Soldner F, Hoeppner DJ, Ravin R, Poser SW, Rueger MA, Bae S-K, Kittappa T, McKay R. Notch signalling regulates stem cell numbers in vitro and in vivo. Nature (in press).
Brustle, O., Jones, K.N., Learish, R.D., Karram, K., Choudhary, K., Wiestler, O., Duncan, I.D., McKay, R.D.G., “Embryonic stem cell deived glial precursors; a source of myelinating transplants”, Science., vol. 285, pp. 754-756, 1999.
Frederiksen, K., McKay, R., "Proliferation and Differentiation of Rat Neuroepithelial Precursor Cells in vivo", J. Neurosci., vol. 8, pp. 1144-1151, 1988.
Kim JH, Auerbach JM, Rodriguez-Gomez JA, Velasco I, Gavin D, Lumelsky N, Lee S-H, Nguyen J, Sanchez-Pernautes R, Bankiewicz K, McKay R. “Dopaminergic midbrain neurons derived from embryonic stem cells function in an animal model of Parkinson's disease." Nature vol. 418, pp. 50-56, 2002.
Lumelsky N, Blondel O, Laeng P, Velasco I, Ravin R, McKay R. “ Differentiation of embryonic stem cells to insulinsecreting
structures similar to pancreatic islets”, Science. vol. 292, pp. 1389-94, 2001.
Milhavet O, Casanova D, Chevalier N, McKay RDG, Lehman S. Neural stem cell model for prion propagation. Stem Cells (in press).
Tsai R., McKay RDG. “A nucleolar mechanism controlling proliferation in stem cells and cancer cells ”, Genes and Dev.
vol. 16, pp. 2991-3003, 2002.