The use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for therapeutic purposes represents the next frontier of cell transplantation and builds upon previous work utilizing embryonic stem cells to replace the dopaminergic neurons lost to Parkinson's disease. iPS cells have significant advantages over the embryonic stem (ES) cells they were modeled to reproduce. Unlike ES cells, iPSCs can be created from adult, somatic tissue, rather than from embryos, removing the significant ethical hurdle of ES cell derivation. Additionally, the ability to create cells from adult living donors allows for the possibility both of autologous transplantation and modeling of genetic diseases that would be unlikely to be identified in embryos. Incredibly, only two years after the first iPSC publication, these cells were transplanted into a rat model of Parkinson’s disease and shown to improve disease phenotypes, fundamentally changing the field of cell transplantation. Murine work has since expanded into significant success in transplantation in non-human primates and first in human clinicals trials are in progress. This advance represents incredible progress from the first fetal cell transplants to the creation of iPSCs, to eagerly awaited human clinical trials in a very short period of time.