Abstracts

Summary: The promise of new therapies based on neural progenitor or “stem” cells is receiving increasing attention in society and in biological research. Although this is a relatively new field, several recent discoveries are especially exciting and beginning to greatly impact epilepsy research. To highlight these discoveries this workshop is organized to include experts both in the broader “stem cell” research community alongside those with long-standing interests in epilepsy. Speakers will present the current state of knowledge and speculate on future directions for applying stem cell biology to the treatment of persons with epilepsy. Hongjun Song (Johns Hopkins University) will discuss recent advances in stem cell biology with a specific emphasis on activity-dependent changes in neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus. Scott Baraban (UCSF) will discuss his work with neural progenitor cells used to generate inhibitory GABAergic neurons and attempts to develop these as a cell-based therapy for epilepsy. Jack Parent (University of Michigan) will describe recent findings implicating aberrant neural stem cell behavior in epileptogenic plasticity in models of temporal lobe epilepsy. Lori Isom (University of Michigan) will describe work with induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) to study sodium channel mutations in human epilepsy, and the potential for this approach to lead to novel patient-specific therapies. Together, the different talks are designed to foster a broad discussion of stem cell biology as it relates to epilepsy and related disorders. It is hoped that ideas generated through this workshop will speed the translation of pre-clinical advances in stem cell biology research to new clinical treatments for intractable epilepsies.