[CarolynS]

Brain Cell Transplants Win Fernström Prize

Medical News Today, 17 Sep 2011

This year's Fernström Foundation Nordic Prize, with prize money of SEK 1 million, goes to Professor Anders Björklund from Lund University, Sweden. He is a neurology researcher focusing on neurodegenerative diseases, diseases in which the nerve cells die. Professor Björklund's research group is trying to develop customised stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease.

Shipowner Eric K. Fernström's foundation is based at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University. The Foundation awards an annual Nordic prize of SEK 1 million and local prizes of SEK 100 000 each to promising young researchers at Sweden's six university medical faculties.

This year's prize recognises Anders Björklund's "development of innovative forms of treatment for Parkinson's disease". The work began in the 1970s, when his research group were pioneers in transplanting new nerve cells into the brain. At the time, most researchers did not consider this either possible or meaningful.

"The prevailing view was that the brain was a sort of switchboard, a closed control room that couldn't be changed. Now, on the other hand, we know that the brain is plastic it changes all the time depending on the individual's development and possible diseases", says Anders Björklund.