MIT Technology Review January 3, 2025
After years of controversy, stem cells are on the cusp of cures for conditions like epilepsy and type 1 diabetes.
Now, though, stem cells are finally on the brink of delivering. Take the case of Justin Graves, a man with debilitating epilepsy who received a transplant of lab-made neurons, engineered to quell the electrical misfires in his brain that cause epileptic attacks.
Since the procedure, carried out in 2023 at the University of California, San Diego, Graves has reported having seizures about once a week, rather than once per day as he used to. “It’s just been an incredible, complete change,” he says. “I am pretty much a stem-cell evangelist now.”
The epilepsy trial, from a company called Neurona Therapeutics,...
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