by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(June 9, 2008) Australian researchers say a cure for the same disease that plagued Pope John Paul II, Parkinson’s disease, may be right under our noses – literally.
A team of scientists at Griffith’s University are reporting in a study published in the June 6 issue of the journal Stem Cell that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson’s patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat.
This is significant because the debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s, such as loss of muscle control, are caused by the degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain.
Currently, drug therapies are used to replace dopamine in the brain, but these often become less effective after prolonged use.
Project leader Professor Alan Mackay-Sim said researchers simulated Parkinson’s symptoms in rats by creating lesions on one side of the brain similar to the damage Parkinson’s causes in the human brain.
“The lesions to one side of the brain made the rats run in circles,” he said. “When stem cells from the nose of Parkinson’s patients were cultured and injected into the damaged areas, the rats re-acquired the ability to run in a straight line.”
All the animals used in the experiment showed dramatic improvement within just three weeks.
Perhaps even more significant is the fact that “none of the transplants led to formation of tumors or teratomas in the host rats as has occurred after embryonic stem cell transplantation in a similar model,” Mackay-Sim said.
The advantage of using a patient’s own cells is that, unlike stem cells from a foreign embryo, they are not rejected by the patient’s immune system, so patients are free from a lifetime of potentially dangerous immuno-suppressant drug therapy.
Stem cells obtained from the olfactory nerve in the nose are “naVve,” he explained, meaning they have not yet differentiated into which sort of cells they will give rise to.
“They can still be influenced by the environment they are put into. In this case we transplanted them into the brain, where they were directed to give rise to dopamine producing brain cells.”
Professor Mackay-Sim also developed a technique in 2006 that demonstrates how olfactory adult stem cells can give rise to heart, nerve, liver and brain cells.
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In “Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Why Not?” Dr. Gerry Sotomayor, Bill Schneeberger and Fr. Edward Krause discuss one of the most controversial issues of our time – the use of embryonic stem cells in research and the treatment of illness.
