Fwd: [pdnews] Patient's own stem cells cut Parkinson's symptoms

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BREAKING NEWS from globeandmail.com, Tuesday, April 9, 2002

Patient's own stem cells cut Parkinson's symptoms

By LEONARD ZEHR and CAROLYN ABRAHAM

>From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

An American jet-fighter pilot grounded at the age of 52 by Parkinson's

disease has become the first known patient to be treated with stem cells

taken from his own brain, a Canadian biotech firm announced Monday.

The patient gave up flying after traditional drugs failed to stop his

trembling and shaking. But now, three years after the stem-cell treatment,

he takes no medication for his disease and his symptoms have been reduced by

more than 80 per cent, said Levesque, a Canadian neurosurgeon now

working in Los Angeles.

Dr. Levesque, a vice-president with the Montreal-based Celmed Biosciences

Inc., presented the dramatic result at the annual meeting of the American

Association of Neurological Surgeons in Chicago. But he stressed that the

treatment is experimental and more study is needed.

He explained that the researchers removed the patient's own neural stem

cells and chemically coaxed them to become dopamine-secreting cells which

are lacking in Parkinson's patients. The stem cells, which are famous for

their ability to become any tissue type in the body, were then implanted

back into the brain of the patient.

Without access to the group's full scientific data, other researchers were

cautious about judging the significance of the announcement.

" There could be something very interesting here, but what it is we just

can't say at this point, " said Weiss, a neural stem-cell expert at

the University of Calgary.

Dr. Weiss noted that assessing the results of any experiment involving just

one patient is tricky. " From a single patient you can conclude absolutely

nothing . . . it could even be a placebo effect, " said Dr. Weiss, a

professor of cell biology and anatomy and the first to discover adult neural

stem cells.

Excitement once surrounded the prospect of implanting dopamine-producing

cells harvested from aborted fetuses into Parkinson's patients. But to date,

those research results have been mixed, and to many, a disappointment.

Celmed's work will likely bolster arguments for more research into adult

stem cells, particularly by those morally opposed to using stem cells from

human embryos for medical treatments.

Rudnicki, a senior scientist and director of the molecular-medicine

program at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, called it " a marvellous

proof of principle demonstrating the utility of stem cells for regenerative

medicine. "

Dr. Levesque, who works at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,

acknowledged that he and research partner Toomas Neuman do not fully

understand how the neural stem cells in this case worked to improve their

patient's condition.

That is because the patient's dopamine, the brain chemical important for

movement, dropped to the same low pre-implant levels one year after the

treatment. Despite this, the patient's symptoms still improved.

Dr. Levesque said it may be that some other nervous-system cells implanted

along with the dopamine-secreting cells contributed to the patient's

recovery.

" We need to investigate whether there are other mechanisms involved in

Parkinson's disease that could lead to alternative treatment strategies, " he

said.

The announcement was largely a surprise to the scientific community. Dr.

Weiss said that to his knowledge there has never been a report of neural

stem cells being used to treat Parkinson's in human patients.

What's more, Dr. Weiss said, " this has never even been reported in animals,

to my knowledge. "

Researchers have had concerns about using a patient's own stem cells to

treat a disease. For one, Dr. Weiss said, it's unknown whether those stem

cells will eventually be susceptible to the dysfunctions that caused the

patient's original disease.

Dr. Levesque said his team had conducted preclinical research in rat models

with Parkinson's disease. But, he said, the results of those studies were

not publicly reported because certain patents had not been filed to protect

their intellectual property.

" We have completed the filing of these patents, so we will begin presenting

the results of these studies, " he said.

Celmed, a subsidiary created last June by Montreal-based Theratechnologies

Inc., said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized a Phase II

trial of the stem-cell therapy in more human patients " once certain animal

studies are completed and approved. "

The company's shares rose 91 cents to $12.48 on the Toronto Stock Exchange

Monday.

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Simon J. Coles Email: simon@...

The Adrienne Coles Memorial Trust http://www.coles.org.uk/

** Dedicated to Parkinson's Disease Information on the Internet **

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[Guest guest]

Barbara,

That is certainly hopeful news, however the first fetal tissue transplant was

also a great success. It bothers me that there were never

any preliminary reports of animal models using this technique (which is still

not reported). Unfortunately, this business of not first

testing on animals is not good science and is the type of thing that recently

lead to several deaths in research patients. Then too, Jim

Finn still claims to be getting better due to his pig stem cell transplant,

which is now considered too dangerous.

I would like to see the promised reports on animal experiments and what they did

to make the cells dopamine producing. Especially since

they do admit there does not seem to be more dopamine production and they do not

have an explanation for the improvement. Note that the

stock went up about 10% on the news.

Take care, Bill Werre

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