Two companies have announced promising results of early research in the fight against Parkinson's disease.
Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and the University of Massachusetts have successfully treated parkinsonism in rats by using fetal brain cells from cloned cows. "This research is the first demonstration that transgenic cloned animal tissue can be used in the treatment of a disease," Advanced Cell Technology said in a press release.
"The use of cloned tissue is an improvement over the use of existing animal transplantation technologies because it provides us with large quantities of identical cells," said University of Colorado researcher Curt R. Freed, MD. "While this early-stage research shows promising results, it will be some time before we begin human studies."
The findings were published May 1 in Nature Medicine (1998;4:569-573).
Titan Pharmaceuticals reported positive results from an open-label pilot study with its cell therapy product, Spheramine, in a primate model of Parkinson's disease. Results were presented at a meeting of the American Society for Neural Transplantation by Emory University neurologist T. Subramanian, MD. Improvement was rapidly achieved and maintained after rhesus monkeys were given a single treatment of Spheramine, which consists of therapeutic dopamine-producing human cells.
"Spheramine was able to restore a large degree of function in animals that had shown significant impairment in the ability to use their extremities in feeding and climbing," Dr. Subramanian said. Results of the pilot study revealed that no immunosuppression was required. Pending successful completion of ongoing expanded studies and pending the go-ahead from the FDA, the company hopes to test Spheramine in humans.
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