For the first time, patients with Parkinson's will receive iPS stem cells

Japanese researchers announced Monday that they will conduct the first human trial of a treatment of Parkinson's disease by so-called "iPS" stem cells. A research team from Kyoto University plans to inject five million pluripotent "iPS" (induced pluripotent stem cells) cells into the brain of patients that are capable of giving any type of cell, he said. university in a statement. These iPS cells from healthy donors will develop into dopamine-producing neurons, a neurotransmitter involved in motor control.

The disease is marked by the degeneration of these neurons and results in symptoms that progressively worsen as tremors, limb stiffness and decreased body movement. It affects more than 10 million people worldwide, according to the US Parkinson's Disease Foundation. Currently available therapies "improve symptoms without slowing the progression of the disease," says the foundation. This new research aims to reduce the evil. The clinical trial with seven participants aged 50 to 69 will begin Wednesday. The university will monitor the condition of patients for two years.

Following an experiment performed on monkeys

This test follows an experiment conducted on monkeys with stem cells of human origin which allowed 'Improving the ability of primates with Parkinson's disease to make movements, according to a study published in late August 2017 in the scientific journal Nature. The survival of grafted cells by injection into the brain of primates was observed for two years without any tumor onset.

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS) are adult cells reduced to near embryonic status. making them re-express four genes (normally inactive in adult cells). This genetic manipulation gives them the ability to produce any kind of cells (pluripotency), depending on the location of the body where they are subsequently transplanted.

In September 2014, the work of the team of Masayo Takahashi, a professor Riken public institute, have implanted in the eye of a patient, a 70-year-old woman, a thin film of cells created from iPS cells, themselves derived from adult cells of the skin of the that person's arm. The goal was to treat one of the forms of eye disease called age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in people in the industrialized world, over the age of 55.

The use of iPS cells poses no fundamental ethical problems, unlike stem cells taken from human embryos.

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