Stem cells will now fight Parkinson’s disease

For the first time, human trial to treat Parkinson’s disease was conducted by injecting stem cells into the brain by Japanese scientists.

The research team at Kyoto University has planned to inject five million induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells into the brain of patients suffering from Parkinsons.
The clinical test with seven participants aged between 50 and 69 will begin soon.
The team will monitor the conditions of the patients for two years after the operation.

Recently, the researchers successfully used human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to restore functioning brain cells in monkeys.
It was seen that the primates with Parkinson’s symptoms regained significant mobility after iPS cells were inserted into their brains.

Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder that affects the body’s motor system.
It is caused by a lack of dopamine made by brain cells.
Worldwide, about 10 million people have the illness, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

The treatment will involve use of stem cells to restore normal production of dopamine.
The iPS cells are made by removing mature cells from an individual – often from the skin or blood.
They are then reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells which inturn can be coaxed into dopamine-producing brain cells.
The so-produced “reprogrammed” iPS cells are transplanted into brains of the patients.

The most basic unit of any organism is a cell.
It is the smallest unit of life that can function independently and perform all the necessary functions of life.
Cells develop to form tissues which inturn develop to form organs.
Further broadly speaking, cells are of two types, differentiated and undifferentiated.
Differentiated cells are the building blocks of tissues and organs and are specialised to from that tissue or organ.
Undifferentiated cells are those that have the potential to deleop into many different types of cells like those in muscles, kidney, liver etc.
Stem cells are basically these undifferentiated, primitive cells.
Further Stem cells are of two types, Embryonic and Adult/Somatic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos.
They are totipotent in that they can be differentiated into most of the cell types.
They can produce a clone of the entire organism.
Somatic stem cells or adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells present in differentiated cells in a tissue or organ.
They help in repair and maintenance of specific tissue or organ where they are present.

iPS are adult stem cells, like in umbilical cord cells or bone marrow cells, that can be induced to show properties of stem cells.
They are mostly use in therapeutic cloning to treat degenerative diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzhiemers etc.
They are created by stimulating mature, already specialised cells back into a juvenile state without the need for an embryo.
These can be derived from the patient themselves, making them less likely to be rejected.
The cells can be transformed into a range of different types of cells, and their use is a key sector of medical research.
Further owing to ethical issues embryonic cells are banned in countries such as Ireland and in Latin America.
Therefore use of iPS cells in therapeutic cloning is rather significant.

Currently available therapies for Parkinson’s disease treat symptoms without slowing or halting the disease progression.
On the other hand, the new research aims to actively reverse the disease.

For the first time, human trial to treat Parkinson’s disease was conducted by injecting stem cells into the brain by Japanese scientists.