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Parkinson's victim improves with transplant of own Stem cells
Reuters / page A2 of the Boston Globe ^
| 4/9/2002
| Maggie Fox
Posted on 04/09/2002 6:58:03 AM PDT by rface
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:41 AM PDT by Jim Robinson.
[history]
WASHINGTON - A transplant of a man's own brain cells has treated his Parkinson's disease, clearing up the trembling and muscle rigidity that characterize the disease, researchers reported yesterday.
The researchers believe they isolated and nurtured adult stem cells from the patient's brain, cells that they re-injected to restore normal function.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous; Reference; Science
KEYWORDS: adultstemcells; california; canada; cedarssinai; celmedbioscience; drmichellevesque; fetaltissue; losangeles; michellevesque; neurogeneration; parkinsons; parkinsonsdisease; stemcells; theratechnologies
Hopeful research ...
Ashland, Missouri
1
posted on
04/09/2002 6:58:03 AM PDT
by
rface
To: rface
wonderful news!
I always wondered why drugs such as cocaine which causes you to produce dopamine could not be modified to safe levels and prescribed to these people who are basically not able to produce it on their own. Who knows, maybe it is...
Anyways, good news that maybe people will soon stop looking to aborted fetuses for stem cells.
To: Frank Grimes
I hope they can save Michael J Fox.
3
posted on
04/09/2002 9:21:52 AM PDT
by
weikel
To: weikel
so do me and my wife!
To: rface
Bump
and ping to Christopher Reeve et al.
To: weikel
Just saw Michael J. Fox in an interview with Charlie Rose. Without a doubt he has the worst affliction I have seen in years and years. Only Lou Gherig's disease seems to be worse.
6
posted on
04/09/2002 6:17:08 PM PDT
by
OldFriend
To: OldFriend
I didn't see Family Ties much when I was youngewr but I have a strong attachment to someone who played a fellow young Republican.
7
posted on
04/09/2002 6:19:08 PM PDT
by
weikel
To: weikel
Hardly watch any TV, now or ever before but enjoy Charlie Rose interviews on occasion. Watching Fox was really tragic. He is not yet 40 yrs. old and has young children.
8
posted on
04/09/2002 6:25:06 PM PDT
by
OldFriend
To: Frank Grimes
I always wondered why drugs such as cocaine which causes you to produce dopamine could not be modified to safe levels and prescribed to these people who are basically not able to produce it on their own. Who knows, maybe it is... THe neurotransmitter in Parkinson's is replaced with L Dopa (often combined with an enzyme to make it last longer, in Sinemet). However, after awhile it stops working or you get side effects.
The movie "awakenings" shows how it was used for a severe form of Parkinson's disease; in normal parkinson's disease, people stay well for five or ten years before it stops working. That's why all the interest in stem cells
Interestingly enough, an earlier experiment using aborted baby's brain cells ended up with overgrowth and dyskinesias caused by too MUCH of the neurotransmitter: and this is harder to treat.
9
posted on
04/10/2002 6:33:59 PM PDT
by
LadyDoc
To: OldFriend
Just saw Michael J. Fox in an interview with Charlie RoseI saw that yesterday! It just breaks my heart to see his affliction. I hope the adult stem cells begin to show promise. The fact that the man in the article was sympton free after having a stem sell transplant from HIMSELF was remarkable!!
10
posted on
04/10/2002 7:00:33 PM PDT
by
SuziQ
To: SuziQ
I believe Fox had some treatment that wound up being counter productive. We can only hope and pray that there is some treatment to alleviate his suffering.
To: Frank Grimes
Anyways, good news that maybe people will soon stop looking to aborted fetuses for stem cells. I can't see how someone else's stem cells couldn't become a hazard. It seems like there would be no way to stop them if they suddenly decided that your body was the foreign object and made antibodies against you. Your own stem cells wouldn't do that ---it still seems like there could be some risk but your body at least already has mechanisms for regulating them.
12
posted on
04/10/2002 7:13:44 PM PDT
by
FITZ
To: FITZ
The left KNOWS the embryonic stem cells are useless but will NEVER admit it. They want to keep the idea of abortion as a necessary saviour. SICK SICK SICK.
Hope For Parkinson's Victims?
WASHINGTON, April 9, 2002
The patient, a nuclear engineer and jet pilot, developed Parkinson's in his 40s. He had tremors and stiffness in his muscles and the drugs used to treat the disease had, as they always do, stopped working.
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|
(REUTERS) A transplant of his own brain cells have treated a man's Parkinson's disease, clearing up the trembling and rigid muscles that mark the disease, researchers say. The researchers believe they isolated and nurtured adult stem cells from the patient's brain, cells that they re-injected to restore normal function. "We definitely need to do more studies," said Dr. Michel Levesque of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who led the study. "This is the first case that shows a promising technique may work. It is an experimental procedure and has to be investigated further before it becomes accepted procedure."
More than two years after the experimental treatment, the man has no symptoms of Parkinson's, an incurable and fatal brain disease that starts with tremors and ends up incapacitating its victims. Parkinson's is caused when brain cells that produce dopamine die off. Dopamine is a key neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical that is involved in movement. Many different groups of researchers are experimenting to see if these brain cells can be regenerated using stem cells, the so-called master cells that give rise to the various different tissues in the body.
Some stem cells come from very early embryos, some from aborted or miscarried fetuses and some can be found in a person's own tissues, but they are elusive. The study is sure to be used in the debate over the use of embryonic stem cells. Some groups say adult stem cells can be as useful as those taken from embryos. Many scientists disagree and say both adult and embryonic stem cells should be studied. Levesque said the patient, a nuclear engineer and jet pilot, developed Parkinson's in his 40s. He had tremors and stiffness in his muscles and the drugs used to treat the disease had, as they always do, stopped working.
His team drilled into the patient's skull and removed a piece of his brain. "We took a tiny piece of cortex measuring probably less than the size of a pea," Levesque said in a telephone interview. "What we extracted were neural stem cells or progenitor cells." It is hard to tell whether a cell is a stem cell, but they grew the cells in special media, a kind of nurturing soup.
They checked to make sure at least some of the cells were producing dopamine, and then injected them back into the patient's brain, researchers told a meeting in Chicago of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. PET scans of the man's brain, which show brain function, showed that dopamine was being produced and used. "At three months there was a 58 percent increase," Levesque said. But now the man's dopamine production, as measured by PET scans, is back to where it was when he was first treated, which puzzles Levesque, as the symptoms of Parkinson's have not returned. He said it is possible that it takes a while for the symptoms to show after dopamine production dies down. Or perhaps PET scans do not show everything that is going on.
Other cells may also be involved in the processes that underlie Parkinson's, Levesque said. It is also possible that the animals used to study Parkinson's do not accurately mimic the human disease, so that humans may react differently to treatment, he said. Although the Phase I safety study was done using only the single patient, Levesque said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given his team the go-ahead to start a Phase II trial, which will include more patients and test for safety and whether the treatment works. Levesque and colleagues formed a company to develop the technique, called Neurogeneration. It has been bought out by California-based CelMed Bioscience, a subsidiary of Canada-based Theratechnologies.
14
posted on
12/19/2006 5:35:06 PM PST
by
Coleus
(Happy Chanukkah, Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe)
To: rface; 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; annalex; ..
15
posted on
12/19/2006 5:37:47 PM PST
by
Coleus
(Happy Chanukkah, Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe)
To: Coleus
I'll be passing the info along to a friend of the family who has pretty severe Parkinson's at a relatively young age. I imagine insurance won't cover this kind of treatment yet, but maybe the person could look into volunteering to see if it works on him, and if that's not possible, it would at least give him hope.
16
posted on
12/20/2006 7:12:13 PM PST
by
Sun
(*MERRY CHRISTMAS!* And during this beautiful season, let's all pray for good to win over evil soon!)
To: Frank Grimes
I always wondered why drugs such as cocaine which causes you to produce dopamine could not be modified to safe levels and prescribed to these people who are basically not able to produce it on their own. Who knows, maybe it is...
Because it causes normal cells to increase production of dopamine. But a cell incapable of producing even a normal amount can't be forced to up its production if it lacks the cellular machinery.
17
posted on
12/20/2006 7:15:25 PM PST
by
aruanan
To: Coleus; Peach; airborne; Asphalt; Dr. Scarpetta; I'm ALL Right!; StAnDeliver; ovrtaxt
bump & a ping to recent comment and links
18
posted on
12/21/2006 11:37:57 PM PST
by
neverdem
(May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
To: neverdem
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