Personalised treatments for Parkinson’s disease

Scientists at Cardiff University are helping to bring personalised treatments for Parkinson's disease closer to the clinic, thanks to a major investment of over £50,000 from American charity, The Summit for Stem Cell Foundation. Working in partnership with Professor Jeanne Loring of the Scripps Research Institute, Cardiff University's Dr Mariah Lelos is testing the potential of alternative dopamine cell therapies to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. "Parkinson's disease causes dopaminergic cells in the brain to die, which in turn can cause a wide range of motor and non-motor symptoms in patients. One strategy to reduce these symptoms is to replace the missing dopamine in the brain, using cell replacement therapies," explained Dr Lelos. "However, there is a limited supply of the gold-standard foetal tissue needed for this treatment. What's more, while both foetal tissue and new stem cell-derived therapies work well, they require the patient to take immunosuppression drugs, which can be detrimental to their health." One potential solution is to use cells taken directly from the patient (known as 'induced-pluripotent stem cells', or iPSCs), and transform them into dopamine cell therapy. This iPSC-derived treatment is tailored to each patient and avoids the use of immunosuppressive drugs, which means that the therapy should be safe with no side effects.