Patent ID: 8153424

Claim:
A method of creating a population of human ventral spinal progenitor cells, the method comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a synchronous population of cells that are cultured from human embryonic stem cells, that are characterized by an early rosette morphology and that are Pax6 + /Sox1 − ; (b) culturing the cells of step (a) with a sufficient amount of retinoic acid in adherent culture, wherein the resulting cells are positive for Hoxb4 and are negative for at least one of Otx2 or Bf1; (c) expanding the resulting cells of step (b) in a suspension culture with a sufficient amount of retinoic acid; and (d) culturing the cells of step (c) in a suspension culture with a sufficient amount of retinoic acid and an agent selected from the group consisting of sonic hedgehog and purmorphamine, wherein at least 80% of the resulting cells are Olig2 + , Nkx2.2 + , Irx3 + and Pax7 − .