Year 2

We have completed the first two AIMs of our proposal on time, and on budget, and we reported on these AIMs in our previous progress report. During this reporting period we have made progress on AIMs 3, 4 and 5. In AIM 3, we transplanted hESC-derived motor neuron progenitor cells into sites of motor neuron death in adult rats. We experienced minor technical difficulties that have set us back by a few months, due to sub-optimal expression of a growth factor in muscles, which is necessary to draw motor neuron axons out to muscles. We have fixed the problem and have confirmed long term growth factor expression in muscles. We have also confirmed that our toxin model induces motor neuron death using several methods, that transplanted motor neurons survive and connect with the spinal cord, and standardized all testing protocols to determine whether transplants along with growth factor addition to muscles will benefit the behavior of the treated animals. Our final experiment is in progress. This delay will not alter the project costs.
With regards to AIM 4, we are well ahead of schedule. This AIM was to begin in Year 3, but we began the experiments in Year 2. In this AIM, we transplanted hESC-derived motor neuron progenitor cells into sites of spinal cord injury in adult rats. We have confirmed that transplanted motor neurons survive and connect with the spinal cord, that transplantation enhances the survival of the host spinal cord that otherwise would have been lost, that transplantation enhances axon branching of the host spinal cord, and that these ‘nursing’ effects cause behavioral improvement of locomotion. Our increased productivity has not affected the budget.
With regards to AIM 5, are on track and on budget. We have generated FDA-compliant documents for all of the studies listed above.