GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- University of Florida researchers have
shown ordinary human brain cells may share the prized qualities
of self-renewal and adaptability normally associated with stem
cells. Writing online today (Aug. 16) in Development, scientists
from UF's McKnight Brain Institute describe how they used mature
human brain cells taken from epilepsy patients to generate new
brain tissue in mice. Furthermore, they can coax these
pedestrian human cells to produce large amounts of new brain
cells in culture, with one cell theoretically able to begin a
cycle of cell division that does not stop until the cells number
about 10 to the 16th power. "We can theoretically take a single
brain cell out of a human being and - with just this one cell -
generate enough brain cells to replace every cell of the donor's
brain and conceivably those of 50 million other people," said
Dennis Steindler, Ph.D., executive director of UF's McKnight
Brain Institute. "This is a completely new source of human brain
cells that can poten