The work, published in today's on-line edition of the journal Science, provides "proof of concept" for the belief of scientists and fervent hope of patients that in the not-too-distant future it may be possible to treat patients suffering from chronic diseases with stem cell-based treatments created from their own adult cells. However, Eggan believes that the first therapeutic use of these newly derived stem cells will in fact be to use them to study the root cause of this disease and to screen for drugs that may provide benefit in patients. ed.z.: Now this is the kind of research that shows a lot of promise and isn't controversial. It will eventually fall into the "grow spare parts" category, but taken from yourself, to treat something you have, is about the least controversial and probably in the future the most beneficial treatment they could come up with. In this case in the article, yes, they still have to "untweak" the genes that cause it in the first place, but they are a lot closer now to having those spare neurons.