Promising news?

Second Parkinson's Group in Trial Receives ISCO's Neural Stem Cell Therapy

Here’s their 6 month results from the first group of patients:

“Six months after receiving 30 million ISC-hpNSCs, patients in the first trial group showed a 24 percent reduction in their OFF time — a period when levodopa therapy begins to fail and Parkinson’s symptoms return. The therapy extended levodopa’s period of action without dyskinesia — known as ON time — by 19 percent.

All patients improved their mood, with an average increase of 35 % in the Beck Depression Inventory and 33 % in the Parkinson’s Disease Quality of Life Score-39 (PDQ-39). They also improved or retained their cognitive abilities, with an average improvement of 14% in the Cognitive Impairment dimension of the PDQ-39.”

Promising news? - Yes.

Current news? - No. The date of this PNT article is 9th March 2018.

In the main thread covering this research (see link below), the latest update (also from PNT) is dated 17th April 2018.

Stem cells injected into brain of Victorian patient in world-first Parkinson’s diseas

I'm not sure if this is just a co-incidence, but I've just noticed that PNT has (very recently) published an article that highlights a special issue of the journal "Stem Cells and Development". The focus of the special issue is PD.

Effective Parkinson's Treatment May Lie in Stem Cells, Researchers Say

The PNT article highlights two papers in particular. The first is on Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (IPSCs) and is by Jeanne Loring from the Scripps Research Institute:

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/scd.2018.0107

The second paper is about the work of International Stem Cell Corporation (Melbourne project):

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/scd.2018.0001

This short editorial might also be of interest:

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.10...2018.29002.par

KYOTO (Kyodo) -- A Kyoto University research team said Monday it will begin a clinical test this week using induced pluripotent stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease.

Kyoto Univ. to begin iPS clinical test for Parkinson's disease - The Mainichi

From the link:
"The nerve cells are created using cells from people who have types of immunity that make them less prone to transplant rejections."

This sentence kind of jumped out at me. I'll try to follow this up.

Jeffreyn, that puzzled me as well.

All I can think of is that they are trying to match MHC haplotypes as closely as possible between donor and recipient as in other forms of transplant medicine?