Due to the lack of simple methods for the isolation of primary Clara cells from the lung, the majority of studies have been carried out in vivo or using lung cancer cells for in vitro tests. The major disadvantage of such approaches is the difficulty in performing mechanistic studies in non-neoplastic primary cells. Recently, Wong et al. developed a method for isolating CCSP + cells from bone marrow by flow cytometry sorting [15] . We speculated that this method may also be used to isolate CCSP + (Clara) cells from the lung. In this study we established a simple method for the isolation of CCSP + cells from mouse lung and applied several different means to identify stem cell-like characteristics of CCSP + cell in vitro and in vivo. We propose that this new procedure method for CCSP + cell isolation provides a useful instrument for Clara cell research, for instance in the field of stem cell biology.