Bridging the divide: spinal cord repair by cellular transplantation--from research laboratory to therapeutic application.

Spinal cord injury remains a clinical problem for which new therapeutic options are required. Recent developments in spinal cord injury research have suggested that promotion of axonal regeneration by cellular transplantation may be a feasible future treatment modality and it is possible that small animal clinical patients may be the first to benefit from these new approaches. This article describes the experiments which have generated this optimism and considers the steps that will be required to make the transition from laboratory experiments to clinical application.