January 29, 2013

A step towards repairing the central nervous system




Despite recent advances in understanding the mechanisms of nerve injury, tissue-engineering solutions for repairing damage in the central nervous system (CNS) remain elusive, owing to the crucial and complex role played by the neural stem cell (NSC) niche. This zone, in which stem cells are retained after embryonic development for the production of new cells, exerts a tight control over many crucial tasks such as growth promotion and the recreation of essential biochemical and physical cues for neural cell differentiation.

According to the first author of the paper, Zaida Álvarez, from the Group on Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), “in order to develop tissue-engineering strategies to repair damage to the CNS, it is essential to design biomaterials that closely mimic the NSC niche and its physical and biochemical characteristics”.