Collagen IV emerges as superior coating for neural progenitor cells on conductive interfaces

In the long effort to repair the human nervous system, science has often built on materials it cannot fully trust — tumor-derived, animal-sourced, and difficult to translate into living patients. Researchers at the University of Arizona have now shown that collagen IV, a protein native to human tissue, can replace these uncertain foundations, supporting neural progenitor cells on electrically conductive interfaces with equal fidelity and far greater clinical promise. It is a quiet but consequential step: the scaffolding of future neural repair therapies becoming, at last, something the human b