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Embryonic Cells Give Hope for Parkinson's Cure NewsMax.com Wires Saturday, Feb. 17, 2001 SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) - When implanted into the brains of the mice, embryonic animal cells act just like cells which produce dopamine, the brain chemical deficient in Parkinson's disease, researchers reported Friday. The technology's success required growing vast numbers of the embryonic cells outside the body. However, to treat human patients with the same procedure will mean scientists cross an ethical, political and religious minefield. Thus scientists also noted the best hope for curing patients with Parkinson's disease lies in the lap of the Bush administration. The new U.S. president and his advisers will influence whether federal funding should be freed for embryonic stem cell research. "I am optimistic that the Bush administration will respond favorably to embryonic stem cell research," said Jeffrey Martin, a partner in the Washington legal firm of Shea and Gardner. Martin, a Republican and a Parkinson's disease patient, said, "President Bush has shown he has an open mind about this because he has asked for a review of guidelines regarding use of human embryonic cells." The human embryonic cells come from week-old embryos created during in vitro fertilization procedures - so-called test tube babies. The tissue comes from embryos who are to be discarded for one reason or another. "We have to educate the public, the president and right-to-life advocates that this is not abortion," said Martin at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said people who oppose use of embryonic tissue should realize that if federal rules become more restrictive, research that will inevitably go on will not be governed by federal oversight. Furthermore, alternative resea rch into use of adult stem cells, while continuing, does not seem promising. "I think that if the public is made aware of the progress in this area, the public will support embryonic stem cell research," Martin said. In a presentation, Dr. Ole Isacson, associate professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, said he and his colleagues were able to find the embryonic cells in mice, extract them and grow the cells in culture. "You can grow enough cells to do a transplant, and still have a renewable source of cells," he said. Isacson said that once implanted into the brain, the embryonic stem cells could be manipulated into producing dopamine in the animals. Because the mechanism for production of dopamine in the mouse model is similar to that of humans, Isacson and other believe the procedure could work in man. He said that fetal cell transplantation - taking dopamine-producing cells from the brains of aborted fetuses - appears to have some success, but the ability to harvest enough cells to perform the transplant limits its pra cticality. He said only a handful of such transplants a year would be performed in his home country, Sweden. Ron McKay, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., said the difference between embryonic cells and fetal cells was that the stem cells from the embryos could be coaxed into behaving in a part icular manner. Fetal cells do not grow as rapidly and cannot be easily molded to perform a particular purpose. "Embryonic cell transplantation is the best hope we have for curing this disease," said Dr. J. William Langston, president and senior scientist of Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif. Langston told United Press International that he was less optimistic that the Bush administration "will do the right thing" and permit embryonic cell transplantation research and relax government rules. He is concerned that Bush would order a moratorium on the research. McKay suggested that if the United States government did not permit embryonic research, the experimentation and research would continue in other nations, particularly Britain and France. McKay said pro-life supporters might not accept Martin's argument that embryos created in the test tube are different than fetuses conceived through intercourse. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/2/16/213238.shtml ************