ALS and stem cells

What is ALS?
ALS is a disease that attacks motor neurons and cells in the spinal cord, It also causes muscle weakness.
so that a person has a hard time mmoving around or in severe cases, cannot move at all. It usually starts
out as something really minor, then it progressively becomes worse over the course of months or even years.
the mortality rate is high as sometimes victims can choke on their food as they will have a hard time swallowing
and chewing. it is usually passed down through genetics. First family members (parents, siblings, etc) of ALS
victims have a 1 percent chance of developping the disease.

Further information on what ALS is:

How do we treat ALS with Stem cell research?
At the moment, Stem cells cannot really do much to stop ALS. However, some research has been made. And it has been
shown that implanted stem cells could revitalise some dead neural cells lost to ALS. It has also been proven that
Neural stem cells can be stimulated to create new cells to replace cells damaged by ALS, however, the cells did not
come in large enough numbers to fully restore any given area or cure the disease entirely.

There has also been progress with Induced Pluripotent Stem cells and have made coloumns of motor neurons. It has
even been proven that generated neurons from stem cells can work in the spinal cord in some animals and even
interact with other non-artificial stem cells. Right now, scientists are studying how the brain and nervous system generate
neurons and how those neurons can go into the neural network.

Here is a video on how we could treat ALS with stem cells (a description of a clinical trial):

Sources/Further reading:

“Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis

“ALS.” Canadian Stem Cell Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2017 http://stemcellfoundation.ca/en/diseases/als/

John T. Dimos1,*, Kit T. Rodolfa1,2,*, Kathy K. Niakan1, Laurin M. Weisenthal1, Hiroshi Mitsumoto3,4, Wendy Chung4,5, Gist F. Croft4,6, Genevieve Saphier1, Rudy Leibel5, Robin Goland7, Hynek Wichterle4,6, Christopher E. Henderson4,6, Kevin Eggan1,†1 Harva, John T. Dimos, Kit T. Rodolfa, Kathy K. Niakan, Laurin M. Weisenthal, Hiroshi Mitsumoto, Wendy Chung, Gist F. Croft, Genevieve Saphier, Rudy Leibel, Robin Goland, Hynek Wichterle, Christopher E. Henderson, Kevin Eggan, and Science29 Aug 2008 : 1218-1221. “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Generated from Patients with ALS Can Be Differentiated into Motor Neurons.” Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Generated from Patients with ALS Can Be Differentiated into Motor Neurons | Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2017. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/321/5893/1218