spinal | Ricerc@Sapienza

Managing chronic pain patients at the time of covid-19 pandemic

COVID-19 is imposing unprecedented stress on our healthcare system but in some cases these
changes, such as more telemedicine for pain management, may be valuable paradigm shifts that shape the future of modern medicine. Pain does not stop for the pandemic and pain care must continue as well.

Conversion of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) into Functional Spinal and Cranial Motor Neurons Using PiggyBac Vectors

We describe here a method to obtain functional spinal and cranial motor neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Direct conversion into motor neuron is obtained by ectopic expression of alternative modules of transcription factors, namely Ngn2, Isl1 and Lhx3 (NIL) or Ngn2, Isl1 and Phox2a (NIP). NIL and NIP specify, respectively, spinal and cranial motor neuron identity. Our protocol starts with the generation of modified iPSC lines in which NIL or NIP are stably integrated in the genome via a piggyBac transposon vector.