Currently, we have a poor understanding of the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders, owing to the fact that post-mortem and imaging studies are only capable of measuring the postnatal status quo and offer little insight into the processes that give rise to the observed outcomes. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) in principle should prove powerful in elucidating the pathways that give rise to neurodevelopmental disorders. HiPSCs are embryonic stem cell-like cells that can be derived from somatic cells. They retain the unique genetic signature of the individual from whom they were derived from, and thus allow researchers to recapitulate that individual’s idiosyncratic neural development in a dish. In the case of diseased individuals, we can reenact the disease-altered trajectory of brain development and examine how and why phenotypic and molecular abnormalities arise in these diseased brains. In this paper, we review various aspects of hiPSC biology and experimental design as well as discuss existing hiPSC models of neurodevelopmental disorders. As already shown by some studies discussed in this review, our hope is that iPSCs will illuminate the pathophysiology of developmental disorders of the CNS and lead to therapeutic avenues for the millions that today suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders.

Over the past few years, new insights have been added to the study of stem cells in the adult lung. The exploration of endogenous lung progenitors as well as the study of exogenously delivered stem cell populations holds promise for advancing our understanding of the biology of lung repair mechanisms. Moreover, it opens new possibilities for the use of stem cell therapy for the development of regenerative medicine approaches for the treatment of lung disease. Here, we discuss the main types of lung epithelial progenitor populations; the potential of endothelial progenitors, mesenchymal stem cells and embryonic stem cells for lung therapy, as well as summarize the cellular mechanisms involved.

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