Source: Nature
Date: 11 June 2007
Summary:
The journal Nature reports a new study in which human stem cell transplants reduced symptoms of Parkinson's disease in monkeys:
"Human stem cell transplants have eased the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in a monkey model of the brain disorder. The study, which brings the prospect of human trials one step closer, hints that stem cells do more than just replace cells -- they may help persuade the brain to heal itself."
The study also describes how scientists used fetal cells to treat monkeys afflicted with the disease and the encouraging results that followed after the injection of fetal cells into the monkeys' brains:
"'In the current study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers isolated stem cells from the brains of aborted fetuses and grew them into large numbers in the laboratory. The cells were then injected into the brains of monkeys with a severe form of chemically induced Parkinson's disease. Before the treatment, the animals couldn't walk unaided, struggled to use their hands and were sometimes unable to move at all. But two months afterwards, they could walk, feed themselves and move more normally. "'They're not as good as normal monkeys, but the improvement is still dramatic,' says team-member and neuroscientist Richard Sidman from the Harvard Institutes of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts."
