Fetal stem cell transplantation: Past, present, and future

Table 1 Ongoing clinical trials of fetal stem cell transplantation

Clinical Trials.gov	Start (yr)	Sponsor	Status	Title	Interventions	Cell source
NCT 01013194	2007	The Mediterranean Institute	Unknown	Human fetal liver cell Transplantation in chronic liver failure	Human fetal liver cell transplantation	Fetal liver cells derived
						from fetuses between
						the 16th and 26th week
						of gestation
NCT 01151124	2010	ReNeuron Limited.	Active, not recruiting	Pilot Investigation of Stem Cells in Stroke	Surgical delivery of a neural stem cell line to the damaged area of the brain	CTX0E03 neural stem
						cells1
NCT 01321333	2011	StemCells, Inc.	Active, not recruiting	Study of HuCNS-SC in patients with thoracic spinal cord injury	Intramedullary spinal cord transplantation of human CNS stem cells	HuCNS-SC cells
						(Human Central
						Nervous System Stem
						Cells)2
NCT 01348451	2009	Neuralstem Inc.	Active, not recruiting	Human neural stem cell Transplantation for the Treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis	Surgical implantation of human neural stem cells	Human spinal cord
						derived neural
						stem cells3
NCT 01391637	2011	StemCells, Inc.	Active, not recruiting	Long-term follow-up study of human stem cells transplanted in subjects with pelizaeus-merzbacher disease	HuCNS-SC transplantation	HuCNS-SC cells
						(Human Central
						Nervous System
						Stem Cells)2
NCT 01632527	2012	StemCells, Inc.	Recruiting	Study of HuCNS-SC in age-related macular degeneration	Transplanting HuCNS-SC cells directly into the subretinal space of one eye.	HuCNS-SC cells
						(Human Central
						Nervous System
						Stem Cells)2
NCT 01640067	2011	Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Maria	Recruiting	Human neural stem cell Transplantation in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis	Surgical microinjection of human neural stem cells	Human foetal
						neural stem cells
						suspension
NCT 01730716	2013	Neuralstem Inc.	Enrolling by invitation	Dose escalation and safety study of neural stem cell transplantation for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis	Human spinal cord stem cell implantation	Human spinal
						cord derived
						neural stem cells3
NCT 01772810	2014	Neuralstem Inc.	Not yet recruiting	Safety study of human spinal cord-derived neural stem cell transplantation for the treatment of Chronic SCI	Human Spinal Cord-derived Neural Stem Cell Transplantation	Human spinal
						cord derived
						neural stem cells3
NCT 01860794	2013	Bundang CHA Hospital	Recruiting	Evaluation of safety and tolerability of fetal mesencephalic dopamine neuronal precursor cells for Parkinson's disease	Transplantation of fetal mesencephalic dopamine neuronal precursor cells	Fetal
						mesencephalic
						dopamine
						neuronal precursor
						cells
NCT01898390	2012	University of Cambridge	Enrolling by invitation	TRANSEURO open label transplant study in Parkinson's disease	Neural allo-transplantation with fetal ventral mesencephalic tissue	Fetal ventral
						mesencephalic
						tissue

The survey was conducted in ClinicalTrials.gov using key words “fetal + transplantation, or fetus + transplantation”. The status is on June 24, 2014. The description of the table is based on the database. See also the details by entering the identifier No. into the database website. Additional investigation confirmed that the neural stem cells¹ are derived from first trimester human fetal cortical cells, the central nervous system stem cells² from fetal brain tissue, and the spiral cord derived neural stem cells³ from a single eight-week-old fetus.