2010 IBB Distinguished Lecturer - Ronald D. G. McKay, PhD - Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Title: "Controlling Stem Cells"

The regenerative potential of the adult mammalian brain is not well understood and as a result, is not exploited. The presence of stem cells in the adult mammalian brain suggests that (1) a repair mechanism in the adult brain contributes to its homeostatic maintenance and (2) targeting the adult neural stem cell compartment may be a valid clinical strategy for degenerative disorders. Although transplantation of neural stem cells or their differentiated progeny is an obvious therapeutic approach, in vitro studies reveal signals that may enable their pharmacological manipulation, avoiding the problems associated with grafting. This increased numbers of stem cells may have beneficial effects on adjacent neurons. We report that increasing the number of endogenous stem cells in vivo promotes the survival of injured neurons and confers behavioral improvements in models of both ischemic stroke and Parkinson's disease. This work suggests a strategy to pharmacologically enhance tissue repair by targeting endogenous stem cells may replace cell transplantation as the major clinical goal in stem cell biology. I will use the injured liver as second example of how an interest in stem cells leads to new insights in regeneration. In closing, I will return to the idea that neural stem cells and neurons and suggest general strategies to understand psychiatric disease.