Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, is a progressive neurologic disease for which there is no cure, and 80% of patients suffering from ALS die within 5 years of diagnosis. Cellular therapies show some promise in the treatment of the disease. In this session, a physician who treats ALS patients will discuss the natural history of the disease and the potential mechanisms of how cellular therapy might stabilize or reverse the disease process. Speakers from two institutions actively developing novel cellular therapies for ALS will describe some of the specific challenges in development of ALS cellular therapies based on neural tissue and adult stem cells.