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Optimism over disease research tempered by feds' balking Feb. 16, 2001 | 3:00 p.m. By LEE BOWMAN Scripps Howard News Service SAN FRANCISCO -- The prospects for using immature stem cells to cure Parkinson's disease and perhaps other degenerative brain illnesses are growing brighter, researchers told a scientific meeting here Friday. But optimism at the American Association for the Advancement of Science was tempered by concern that new federal support for research on cells derived from discarded embryos may be withdrawn by the Bush administration. ``At this point, we don't know for sure that we can get embryonic stem cells from humans to generate the kind of dopamine-producing cells we need to treat Parkinson's,'' said Ronald McKay, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health. ``But we do know these cells offer us the best hope of producing enough cells to treat the growing number of Parkinson's patients out there.'' ``A substantial number of the new grant proposals we're seeing from young investigators involves the use of stem cells,'' said William Langston, president and senior scientist with The Parkinson's Institute, a private research group. ``But if the door to federal support for this research is closed, we'll lose 90 percent of them.'' Parkinson's occurs when most of the cells that produce the brain- signaling chemical dopamine die in a part of the brain stem called the substantia nigra. The chemical shortage causes loss of control over body movement. People with the disease become rigid, have tremors and find it difficult to stand, walk or even eat. More than 1.2 million Americans are thought to have the disease, mainly those over 60, although it strikes some people much earlier. The disease can be slowed by artificial dopamine drugs, but there is no known cure. Neuroscientists in Sweden, the United States and elsewhere have been successfully treating the disease using transplants of dopamine- producing cells taken from fetuses for more than a decade. ``There are patients who have been living well with these transplants now for 11 or 12 years,'' said Ole Isacson, an associate professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. But the supply of such cells is limited, which is why researchers have seized on the prospect of stem cells. Stem cells are the body's blank slates. In the earliest stages of development, they have the potential to become any type of tissue; in more developed fetuses, stem cells become more restricted to certain organ systems, while in adults, the spare-parts-in- waiting are limited mainly to organs where they reside, although some experiments suggest they can be reprogrammed to develop into other types of cells. Teams led by McKay, Isacson and others have used different techniques to get embryonic stem cells from mice to mass-produce cells that function as dopamine cells. ``We believe this line of cells would be the easiest to handle, but we need to do a lot more research before we're ready to transplant them into humans,'' said Isacson. Much of that research could come from a new round of federal grants authorized, but not yet approved, by the National Institutes of Health last year. Under research guidelines, federal money would go to the study of embryonic stem cells, but not for directly obtaining the cells. Several institutions have or soon will have ``immortal'' lines of stem cells available for research that were originally obtained from fertilized human eggs that would otherwise have been destroyed by fertility clinics. Researchers believe stem cells could also be used to treat muscular dystrophy, Huntingdon's disease and heart disease. But President Bush has indicated he will not allow federal money to go toward research on tissue from such embryos or aborted fetuses. Jeffery Martin, a Washington lawyer and a Parkinson's patient who advocates for research, said he remains hopeful that a review of the research program by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson will recommend the studies go forward. On the Net: http://www.ninds.nih.gov. http://www.parkinsoninstitute.org (Lee Bowman covers health and science for Scripps Howard News Service. e-mail BowmanL(at)shns.com) SHNS AP-NY-02-16-01 1558EST http://www.postnet.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/National/8A962E784F5 CCFA7862569F500734803?OpenDocument ************