Turning blood to brain cells: a plasma mediated reprograming model

The lack of effective stem cell protocols for generating personalized neurovascular niches poses a critical challenge in precision medicine. While iPSC-based methods are explored, their clinical use is hindered by high costs, long timelines, and cancer risks. Recent advancements in plasma-driven differentiation, using circulating monocytes, offer a promising solution as they can be reprogrammed into neuron-like, endothelial-like, and hematopoietic cells without genetic manipulation, by inducing growth factors mediated transdifferentiation. Vasculature is integral to neurodevelopment, with early blood supply transitioning from the perineural to intrinsic vascular plexus, driven by neuro-hematovascular signaling. The choroid plexus selectively transports proteins and growth factors from blood to CSF, supporting neural proliferation and differentiation. Building on these insights, we leveraged the innate reprograming potential of blood-derived cells to generate neuro-hematovascular niches using a novel PITTRep methodology, devoid of transgene and growth factor mediated transdifferentiation opening new avenues for regenerative and investigative neurovascular studies.