Tupelo3 said:
"What we don't know is if the AADC enzyme created by Voyager, which gets implanted into the brain ..."

I may be splitting hairs here, but this is not quite correct, and I think it's worth getting it right. As I've said some time back on a different thread, I think that we should always try to make the effort to help each other out by pointing out errors whenever we spot them.

Voyager is not creating the AADC enzyme and implanting it into the brain. Voyager is modifying DNA so that the brain itself can create more AADC. As it says in the article you linked to: "The gene therapy goes in and helps the putamen produce new AADC enzymes, essentially creating a reservoir that can now be used to convert levodopa to dopamine."

That is why the Voyager CEO describes the treatment as "one and done". If Voyager was creating AADC they would need to do surgery regularly on each patient to "top up" the AADC.

This is interesting stuff, but it doesn't have much to do with the point I was trying to make. I realise that my point is a fairly subtle one, and I "umed and ahed" about whether or not to bother doing a post, but since I've done a post, I'll try to make my point a bit clearer.

All I am trying to say is that statements like the following quote from the article I linked to are, I believe, still subject to dispute within the research community: "The cause of Parkinson’s isn’t well understood, but the reason the drug wears off is. It’s because the brain also starts losing an enzyme known as ... AADC ..."

But the good news is, if the next trial (placebo controlled) confirms the previous results, then Voyager will have established two things:

(1) That L-Dopa wears off because (at least partly) of the loss of AADC.

(2) That Voyager's gene-therapy technology is effective in compensating for this loss.

Jeff