Long thought of as mere bystanders, astrocytes are crucial for the survival and well-being of motor neurons, which control voluntary muscle movements. In fact, defective astrocytes can lay waste to motor neurons and are the main suspects in the muscle-wasting disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). To get to the root of this complicated relationship, researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies for the very first time established a human embryonic stem cell (hESC). (source: salk.edu)
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