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Stem Cell Research on Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative neurological disorder that affects motor control. In Parkinson's patients, dopamine-producing brain cells are damaged or inactive, resulting in the misfiring of nerve cells and the loss of motor coordination. Stem cells offer a promising new treatment for Parkinson's disease, although research is still in the beginning stages.

  1. Stem Cells

    • According to the National Institutes of Health, there are three different kinds of stem cells, including adult, tissue-specific and embryonic. Stem cells are unspecialized cells with the potential to specialize into a variety of cell types. Embryonic stem cells are the most versatile and can develop into a brain cell, muscle cell, red blood cell or any other type of cell in the body.

    Applications

    • In theory, stem cells could be used to treat any disorder characterized by tissue degeneration. Illnesses that are currently being considered for potential stem cell therapy include: muscular dystrophy, liver diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), rheumatoid arthritis, Huntington's disease, osteoarthritis, heart disease, type 1 diabetes, stroke, spinal cord injuries, burns and Parkinson's disease.

    Procedure

    • According to the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, the first step in stem cell treatment is triggering the specialization of stem cells in the lab. For Parkinson's disease treatment, stem cells must be transformed into dopamine-producing brain cells. Research in mice at the Yale University School of Medicine has shown that unspecialized human endometrial (uterine) stem cells injected into mice brains with degenerated dopamine-producing cells specialize spontaneously in response to the environment of the mouse's brain.

    The First Human Trial

    • According to the website LifeNews, the first adult neural stem cell transplant in a Parkinson's patient took place at UCLA in 2004. The transplantation was a success and in 2009, the researchers published the five-year results of their study.

      "Of particular note," the researchers noted in their report, "are the striking results the study yielded---for the five years following the procedure the patient's motor scales improved by over 80 percent for at least 36 months."

    Additional Research

    • According to the Associated Press, researchers at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital have successfully used embryonic stem cells to relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's in rats. They also showed, however, that in some cases embryonic stem cells injected into the rat's brains resulted in tumor growth. Tumors did not grow when lower concentrations of stem cells were injected, suggesting that determining appropriate doses of treatments can avoid the potential problem of brain tumor growth in future studies.

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