Professor Pat Levitt describes how progenitor cells can be manipulated to develop into a particular type of neuron.

Because we now know a lot about how progenitor cells behave and the transcription factors that control their fate, we actually have also been able to figure out the kinds of factors, the kinds of chemicals that can change the fate of those cells. So there are indeed many ways to change what kinds of neurons, or glial cells (non-neuronal cells), will arise from progenitor cells. You can put them in a culture dish, treat them with a particular kind of growth factor and if they were normally going to become a motor neuron, we have growth factors that could force them into another fate to become, for example, sensory neurons. So we actually know quite a bit about that.

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