ISTOCK, SVISIOResearchers in China have taken cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease one step further. In research published in Stem Cell Reports on June 14, scientists report improvements in the motor abilities of monkeys with Parkinsonian symptoms after grafting dopamine neurons derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into their brains. The findings will serve as preclinical data for China’s first ESC-based clinical study for the neurological disease.
“Since there are a number of therapies being developed, there is no overwhelming theoretical support for a particular cell type, and actually studying them in advanced animal models and then even in patients makes sense to determine what works best,” D. Eugene Redmond Jr., a psychiatrist and neurosurgeon at Yale Stem Cell Center who was not involved in the study, writes in an email to The Scientist.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurological condition that originates from the death of dopamine-producing cells in the brain. Since the early 1990s, groups around the world have been developing cell-replacement therapies to counteract this depletion, with recent efforts focusing on stem cells. Scientists have conducted rodent and primate research using dopamine-producing neurons derived from adult stem cells, ESCs, and ...
