Brain Cell Transplants Are Being Tested Once Again For Parkinson’sby Jon Hamilton / NPR He
Brain Cell Transplants Are Being Tested Once Again For Parkinson’sby Jon Hamilton / NPR HealthResearchers are working to revive a radical treatment for Parkinson’s disease.The treatment involves transplanting healthy brain cells to replace cells killed off by the disease. It’s an approach that was tried decades ago and then set aside after disappointing results.Now, groups in Europe, the U.S. and Asia are preparing to try again, using cells they believe are safer and more effective.“There have been massive advances,” says Claire Henchcliffe, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “I’m optimistic.”“We are very optimistic about ability of [the new] cells to improve patients’ symptoms,” says Viviane Tabar, a neurosurgeon and stem cell biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.Henchcliffe and Tabar joined several other prominent scientists to describe plans to revive brain cell transplants during a session Tuesday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in Boston.Their upbeat message marks a dramatic turnaround for the approach.During the 1980s and 1990s, researchers used cells taken directly from the brains of aborted fetuses to treat hundreds of Parkinson’s patients. The goal was to halt the disease.Parkinson’s destroys brain cells that make a substance called dopamine. Without enough dopamine, nerve cells can’t communicate with muscles, and people can develop tremors, have difficulty walking and other symptoms.Read the entire articleImage above © Roger J. Bick & Brian J. Poindexter / Science Source -- source link
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