Thalidomide was tested on rodents, on whom it worked fine...

Quoting mschild <[log in to unmask]>:

> Parkinson's: the breakthrough 
> Posted by The Independent 
> Thursday, 11 June 2009 at 07:32 am 
> Author: By Steve Connor, Science Editor
> 
> 
> The research was carried out on laboratory mice but scientists believe the 
> findings are proof that the techniques could be applied to humans suffering 
> not just from Parkinson's, but a range of other incurable diseases.
> Researchers have demonstrated the possibility of treating Parkinson's disease
> 
> by transplanting laboratory-matured brain cells back into the individual who
> 
> supplied the skin cells that were turned into cloned embryos ? a process
> known 
> as therapeutic cloning.
> "This is an exciting development, as for the first time it may be possible to
> 
> create a person's own embryonic stem cells to potentially treat Parkinson's 
> disease," said Kieran Breen, director of research at the Parkinson's Disease
> 
> Society ? a charity representing the 120,000 people in Britain affected by
> the 
> illness.
> Dr Breen said: "Stem cell therapy offers great hope for repairing the brain.
> 
> It may ultimately offer a cure, allowing people to lead a life that is free 
> from the symptoms of Parkinson's disease."
> Proof that therapeutic cloning is more than a pipedream will be used by 
> British scientists as justification for their push to expand the boundaries
> of 
> their research to include the use of animal-human "hybrid" embryos for
> medical 
> experiments, a process that is bitterly opposed by the Catholic Church.
> Scientists say that, because of the shortage of human eggs for research 
> purposes, they need to use cow or rabbit eggs for cloning experiments, and 
> have lobbied hard for it to be allowed under the Human Fertilisation and 
> Embryology Bill currently going through Parliament. Even though the stem
> cells 
> derived from cloned hybrid embryos will never be used on patients, the 
> practice is condemned by the Church, which wants all MPs to be given a free 
> vote in the Commons.
> The latest development, published in the journal Nature Medicine, is further
> 
> proof-of-principle that therapeutic cloning can effectively treat ? and 
> possibly cure ? a degenerative brain disorder.
> For the first time scientists have been able to create healthy, working brain
> 
> cells from immature stem cells, derived from embryos cloned from skin cells,
> 
> and transplant them back into the diseased brain. 
> The laboratory mice in the study suffered from a type of Parkinson's disease,
> 
> which is marked by the death of certain nerve cells or neurons in the brain 
> that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. Skin cells were scraped from the
> 
> tails of the animals and cloned using mouse eggs, which had their own cell 
> nuclei removed. Stem cells taken from the resulting cloned embryos were grown
> 
> in the laboratory into mature dopamine-producing brain cells. After 
> transplanting the cells back into the brain, the mice showed significant 
> improvements in a range of experiments designed to test skills that become 
> notably worse in those with Parkinson's disease. 
> The team of American and Japanese scientists, led by Lorenz Studer of the 
> Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York, were able to produce 187 different 
> strains of embryonic stem cells from 24 Parkinsonian mice. A key finding of 
> the experiment was that there were no signs of tissue rejection because the 
> transplanted brain cells were derived from the same mouse that supplied the 
> skin cell for the cloned embryo.
> Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the Medical Research Council said the study 
> provided further proof-of-principle that therapeutic cloning was a potential
> 
> treatment for severe disorders of the brain. He said: "The authors were also
> 
> able to test several independent embryonic stem cell lines corresponding to 
> individual mice, and could show that most seemed to work well. This is very 
> encouraging as it indicates that the cloning process is a sufficiently robust
> 
> method of reprogramming cells back to an early embryonic state, at least when
> 
> the early embryos are used to derive embryonic stem cell lines.
> "Ideally one of the next steps will be to repeat the whole procedure with a 
> monkey model. This will allow much better tests of functional recovery and 
> safety."
> Life with the disease
> "I wish one of these pontificators could get inside my body and see what it 
> feels like. Parkinson's is like being locked in your own body when your mind
> 
> is still there. I can become as rigid as a plank and my legs won't bend. It's
> 
> as though there is a ton of cement on my chest and an army of ants crawling
> up 
> and down my body with spears. It's like being buried alive. 
> "By the age of 70, three-quarters of those in this country will have 
> Parkinson's disease to some degree as it is a degenerative illness. Once you
> 
> have it, it never goes into remission. But no one tells you how difficult it
> 
> is to live with. 
> "It makes me so angry when I hear academics, theologians or medics arguing 
> about cloning. For me, it is like hearing any hopes we may have of returning
> 
> to normality being taken away. By mixing ethics with religion and politics, 
> which is a lethal concoction, they are not thinking about the people who have
> 
> the disease. I feel like saying, 'Get off your high horse.' 
> "I would not want to stop any process unless it I knew it was categorically 
> not going to work for those who are suffering. I don't believe cloning
> embryos 
> is like taking life. Parkinson's is such a desperately painful disease. You 
> would have thought that everyone would support anything reasonable to find a
> 
> cure, and I believe what is being suggested is reasonable."
> Geraldine Peacock CBE is a former chair of the Charity Commission. She has
> had 
> Parkinson's for 18 years.
> 
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