"Footprint-free" human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived astrocytes for in vivo cell-based therapy.

The generation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) from somatic cells has enabled the possibility to provide patient-specific hiPSC for cell-based therapy, drug discovery, and other translational applications. Two major obstacles in using hiPSC for clinical application reside in the risk of genomic modification when they are derived with viral transgenes and risk of teratoma formation if undifferentiated cells are engrafted. In this study, we report the generation of "footprint-free" hiPSC-derived astrocytes.