Possible Future Treatment for Parkinson’s Disease?

When most people reach for a pen, their body acts in one  smooth   and   controlled   movement. This  is because  the instant  a person  thinks  of grabbing  the pen, a series of nerve cells fire in an orchestrated sym- phony  from the brain  to the muscles responsible  for that  action. For  the  movement  to  be  precise  and smooth,  all the nerve cells in the “grabbing-the-pen network” must function  properly,  including cells that tell unneeded  muscles to stay still.  In Parkinson’s  dis- ease, the brain  cells responsible  for keeping unneed- ed muscles from  moving  degenerate  and  die.   This results in progressively  more  dramatic and  uncon- trolled movements,  tremors,  and  spasms.   To date, there  is no cure for Parkinson’s  disease because  no one has figured out a way to bring back the special- ized nerve cells that  have died.

Are the Promises of Stem Cell Therapies Realistic?

The list of medical  achievements stem cells could offer seems to be expanding at an incredible  pace. The role of stem cells in medicine  is already  very real, but there is a danger of exaggerating the promise  of new medical  developments. What tend to be “over-promised” are not only the potential  out- comes of both embryonic and adult stem cell research, but also the time scales that are involved.
The basic research needed to develop viable thera- peutic options  is a lengthy process that may extend over many years and decades. Even after science has moved from basic research to developing med- ical applications, it still takes many years to thor- oughly  test those applications and demonstrate that they are safe to prescribe for patients. This is true for all medical  treatments, including  the development of new drugs, procedures, and medical equipment, and is not specific to the living cell therapies made possible by stem cell research.

There are also many legal and social questions that must be addressed  before stem cell-based therapies become clinically  available. Legal issues that will affect stem cell applications include how to address intellectual property concerns  and how to apply and enforce diverse and sometimes conflicting state and national  laws. Social issues include concerns  about the destruction  of embryos, the distribution  of the benefits of the research, and the protection of both physical and privacy interests of egg and sperm donors and clinical research subjects.
Because Parkinson’s  disease results from the loss of one specific type of nerve cell, stem cells offer a very tangible  possibility for treatment.  Researchers  have recently   learned   how   to   differentiate  embryonic stem cells into  the specific type of brain  cell that  is lost in Parkinson’s  disease.   They have also success- fully  transplanted adult   nerve  stem  cells  into  rat brains.   When  this technique  is proven  to be effec- tive and  safe, transplantation of stem cells into  the brains  of  patients   may  one  day  allow  doctors   to reverse   the   burden   of  Parkinson’s   disease   and restore  control  of movement.   Another  strategy  cur- rently under  study  is the  addition of chemicals  or growth  factors  that  aim to induce the patient’s  own stem  cells  to  repair  the  damaged   nerves  without
needing to grow and transplant stem cells.