Japan team transplants stem cells into brain

An innovative trial to treat Parkinson’s disease

TOKYO, Nov 10, (AFP): Japanese researchers said Friday they have transplanted stem cells into the brain of a patient in the first stage of an innovative trial to cure Parkinson’s disease.

The research team at Kyoto University injected induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells – which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body – into the brain of a male patient in his fifties, the university said in a press release.

The man was stable after the operation, which was performed last month, and he will now be monitored for two years, the university added.

The researchers injected 2.4 million iPS cells into the left side of the patient’s brain, in an operation that took about three hours.

If no problems are observed in the coming six months, they will implant another 2.4 million cells into the right side.

The iPS cells from healthy donors have been developed into the precursors of dopamine-producing brain cells, which are no longer present in people with Parkinson’s disease.

The operation came after the university announced in July they would carry out the trial with seven participants aged between 50 and 69.

It is the first involving implanting stem cells into the brain to cure Parkinson’s.

“I appreciate the patients for participating in the trial with courage and determination,” Kyoto University professor Jun Takahashi told reporters on Friday, according to public broadcaster NHK.

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.

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 tumours 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.

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

Cancer:

Symptoms

Diplomatic ties between Cuba and the United States may be strained but the two countries are standing shoulder to shoulder to fight a common enemy: cancer.

The first biotechnical collaboration between the two countries is aiming to test the effectiveness of a Cuban treatment for lung cancer to see whether it could be used for US patients.

Although still in the test stage, the CIMAvax-EGF treatment has made a lot of noise over the last few months, even before the announcement of this unprecedented partnership.

Various internet sites have claimed it’s a miracle cure, but experts say the truth is more complex than that.

According to Orestes Santos, a researcher at Havana’s molecular immunology center, rather than a vaccination, the treatment involves the “active immunology” of the so-called EGF, or epidermal growth factor, protein that stimulates cell growth.

“The lung cancer tumor needs EGF to grow and proliferate, and what we’ve done in our center is develop a product that generates antibodies against this protein,” Santos told AFP.

“It’s an extra weapon in the fight against cancer, which combines with other therapeutic weapons like chemotherapy.”

Partnership

Interested by their work, the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Buffalo, New York, formed a partnership with the Cuban center during a US business mission to the island nation in 2015. That year the two Cold War foes restored diplomatic relations after decades of enmity.

“The Cuban-American enterprise aims to finance the development (of treatment) and bring about new, bigger and more complete clinical tests on American soil,” said Kalet Leon Monzon, assistant director at the molecular immunology center.

The aim is to have the treatment registered by American health authorities so it can be used on patients in the country.

The treatment, which has been administered by monthly injections at the Cuban center since 2011, has already been approved in Bosnia, Paraguay, Peru, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

“More than 5,000 people worldwide use active immunology with CIMAvax,” said Dr Soraida Acosta Brooks, president of the clinical tests department in a hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

As it turns out, medical and scientific cooperation between the two countries has always transcended official relations.

Despite the US economic embargo on Cuba implemented in 1962, “it’s one of the last diplomatic levers that was maintained,” says Nils Graber, a PhD student in anthropology at the school of higher education in social sciences in Paris.

“American researchers participated in Cuban conferences and Cuban scientists were trained in the United States.”

Cuba has been a pioneer in the fight against cancer, says Graber, who has written a thesis on the island nation’s scientific innovation.