Japanese team succeeds in stem cell therapy on monkeys with Parkinson's
Tue Jan 4, 2005

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers said they had successfully treated
monkeys with Parkinson's disease through a stem cell transplant,
potentially paving the way for an ideal remedy to the intractable
disease.

It was the first time such transplants have worked on primates
suffering from the degenerative nerve disorder, said Nobuo Hashimoto, a
medical doctor at the Department of Neurosurgery at Kyoto University
Graduate School of Medicine.

"First, we have to confirm the effectiveness will last long," said
Hashimoto, the chief researcher of the study.

"Once we can confirm the safety of the therapy, we want the method to
be applied to humans," Hashimoto said. "We hope clinical applications
on humans will be available in about five years."

"There are many approaches to curing the disease, such as strong drugs
or destruction of troubled cells in the brain, but use of embryonic
stem cells is seen as an ideal and fundamental therapy for the
disease," he said.

The researchers extracted embryonic stem cells capable of releasing
dopamine, a neurotransmitter, from fertilized eggs of cynomolgus
monkeys.

It is a decline in production of dopamine that is believed to trigger
Parkinson's disease, in which patients shake uncontrollably.

The embryonic stem cells were then transplanted into six cynomolgus
monkeys, which had drug-induced symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease
in humans.

Three months later, the monkeys' symptoms such as trembling hands had
lessened, Hashimoto said.

Details of the experiment were published on the website of the Journal
of Clinical Investigation on Tuesday.
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