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Stem Cell Transplants and Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative neurological condition associated with motor control in humans. In 1817, British doctor James Parkinson discovered a disorder he called "the shaking palsy." This disorder was later dubbed, Parkinson's disease. In Parkinson's patients, dopamine-producing brain cells are damaged or inactive, resulting in nerve cell misfires that wreak havoc on motor control. Stem cell therapies are currently being tested to regrow these dopamine-producing cells.

  1. Stem Cells

    • Stem cells are the foundation or base cell for every structure in the body. According to The International Society for Stem Cell Research, there are many different kinds of stem cells, including adult, tissue-specific and embryonic. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they have the ability to transform into any cell type. For this reason, they are considered the most valuable type of stem cell for developing treatments for disease.

    Applications

    • In theory, stem cells can be used to treat any illness that includes tissue degeneration. Illnesses currently undergoing stem cell treatment study include Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophies and liver diseases.

    Procedure

    • In the lab, scientists can transform embryonic stem cells into dopamine-producing brain cells, which can then be implanted into the brain of a Parkinson's sufferer. Animal testing is currently underway to assess the efficacy of this treatment, according to Reuters. The first human adult trial took place in February 2009.

    First Human Trial

    • According to the website Lifenews.com, the first adult neural stem cell transplantation to repair brain cells damaged by Parkinson's disease was a success. The researchers, from UCLA, outlined their results in Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal:

      "We have documented the first successful adult neural stem cell transplantation to reverse the effects of Parkinson's disease and demonstrated the long term safety and therapeutic effects of this approach."

      The first patient to undergo this treatment, experienced an 80 percent improvement in symptoms over 36 months.

    Additional Research

    • In addition to the UCLA study, researchers at Yale University School of Medicine used female endometrial cells to treat the brains of mice suffering from Parkinson's-like symptoms. The endometrial cells, already partially differentiated (as opposed to embryonic stem cells), showed a marked reduction in immune rejection response from the mouse. This is good news for Parkinson's sufferers, both because a rejection response reduces the chances for the success of the procedure and because endometrial cells are more readily available than embryonic cells to researchers.

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