Japan human trial tests ‘cure’ for Parkinson’s

5 million iPS cells to be injected into patient brains

TOKYO, July 30, (Agencies): Japanese researchers on Monday announced the first human trial using a kind of stem cell to treat Parkinson’s disease, building on earlier animal trials.

The research team at Kyoto University plans to inject five million induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells — which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body — into patient brains, the university said in a press release.

The iPS cells from healthy donors will be developed into dopamineproducing brain cells, which are no longer present in people with Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder that affects the body’s motor system, often causing shaking and other difficulties in movement.

Worldwide, about 10 million people have the illness, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

Currently available therapies “improve symptoms without slowing or halting the disease progression,” the foundation says.

But the new research aims to actively reverse the disease.

The clinical test with seven participants aged between 50 and 69 will begin on Wednesday.

The university will monitor the conditions of the patients for two years after the operation.

The human trial comes after an earlier trial involving monkeys.

Researchers announced last year that primates with Parkinson’s symptoms regained significant mobility after iPS cells were inserted into their brains.

They also confirmed that the iPS cells had not transformed into tumors during the two years after the implant.

iPS cells are created by stimulating mature, already specialised, cells back into a juvenile state — basically cloning without the need for an embryo.

These can be derived from the patient, making them less likely to be rejected, while also sidestepping ethical qualms about taking cells from embryos.

Different

The cells can be transformed into a range of different types of cells, and their use is a key sector of medical research.

In 2014, Riken, a Japanese government-backed research institution, carried out the world’s first surgery to implant iPS cells to treat a patient with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common medical condition that can lead to blindness in older people.

Osaka University is also planning a clinical test to treat heart failure by using a heart muscle cell sheet created from iPS cells.

In the US, scientists from Duke University said in January they had managed for the first time to grow functioning human muscle from iPS cells in the lab.

So-called iPS cells are made by removing mature cells from an individual — often from the skin or blood — and reprogramming them to behave like embryonic stem cells. They can then be coaxed into dopamine-producing brain cells.

“This will be the world’s first clinical trial using iPS cells on Parkinson’s disease,” Jun Takahashi, professor at Kyoto University’s Centre for iPS Cell Research and Application, told a news conference. The centre is headed by Shinya Yamanaka, who in 2012 shared a Nobel Prize for medicine with a British scientist, John Gurdon, for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like cells.

“We intend to carry on conducting our research carefully, yet expeditiously, in coordination with Kyoto University Hospital, so that new treatment using iPS cells will be brought to patients as soon as possible,” Yamanaka said in a statement.

The fact that the clinical trial uses iPS cells rather than human embryonic cells means the treatment would be acceptable in countries such as Ireland and much of Latin America, where embryonic cells are banned.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co Ltd has said it aims to manufacture and start selling cellular medicine based on the data from the clinical trials by the year ending March 2023.

The company said, however, the target is solely its own and not a shared goal with Kyoto University.