Abstract
The pituitary is a major endocrine center for systemic hormones, secreting various hormones such as ACTH and GH that are critical for survival, homeostasis and growth. Therefore, once it becomes dysfunctional, it will cause a wide range of serious symptoms. The current treatment for hypopituitarism is hormone replacement therapy, but not a curative treatment, so it is hoped regenerative medicine will become a superior treatment. We have succeeded in generating a functional anterior pituitary from mouse and human embryonic stem cells, and showed its therapeutic efficacy for pituitary disorders. In this article, we discuss the current research progression in and future perspectives of pituitary regenerative medicine.
