Shong Lau

TL;DR: It is shown that transplanted human fibroblasts and human astrocytes, which are engineered to express inducible forms of neural reprogramming genes, convert into neurons when reprograming genes are activated after transplantation.

TL;DR: An adeno-associated virus-based reporter system that allows selective GFP labeling of reprogrammed neurons is developed that allows mapping of 3D circuitry integration into local and distal brain regions and shows that the newly reprogramed neurons are integrated into host brain.

TL;DR: An optimized one‐step method to efficiently reprogram dermal fibroblasts from elderly individuals using a single‐vector system is developed and it is demonstrated that it is possible to obtain iNs of high yield and purity from aged individuals with a range of familial and sporadic neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's, Huntington's, as well as Alzheimer's disease.

TL;DR: A protocol for highly efficient generation of functional iNs from fetal human fibroblasts is presented and the ability of these converted human iNs (hiNs) to survive transplantation and maintain their phenotype in the adult rat brain is demonstrated.

TL;DR: An improved system for direct neural conversion of human fibroblasts that can be combined with integrase-deficient vectors, providing a nonintegrative and self-regulated conversion system that rids problems associated with the integration of viral transgenes into the host genome.