Parkinson's Disease: Autologous Transplantation Shows Promising Results for IPS Cell Therapy

A study comparing the impact of immune response in autologous transplantation (transplantation of cells from the subject's own body) and allogeneic transplantation (transplantation of cells from a different individual of the same species) has been conducted by researchers from Kyoto University led by Professor Jun Takahashi and Assistant Professor Asuka Morizane. Parkinson's disease is a progressive and intractable disease of the nervous system in which the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain leads to reduced dopamine production, resulting in limb tremor, stiffness causing difficulty in movement, and other symptoms. The therapies applied up till now, based on drugs or electrode treatment, may improve symptoms but have proved unable to halt the depletion of dopaminergic neurons. Hopes have therefore become focused on a therapy with the more radical approach of replacing the lost neural cells through cell transplantation, thereby promoting the formation of new neural pathways to restore brain function. Human iPS cells are looked to as a potential source of the transplant cells.



Source-Eurekalert