 |
 |
Hello all, In an article posted on the PARKINSN on-line web news pages titled "Bresagen Limited Clones Australia's First Pig" this statement caught my eye: "BresaGen recently demonstrated an ability to control the differentiation of embryonic stem cells to essentially pure cultures of dopamine producing cells." I e-mailed BresaGen for further details and received the following reply from Richard Stewart, Project Manager, Cell Therapy Program. "Thanks for your recent enquiry regarding dopaminergic stem cells. Bresagen researchers have shown that they can control the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells into essentially pure dopamine-producing neurons. We are currently testing whether we can reproduce these results using human embryonic stem cells. "Although these results are extremely encouraging, unfortunately there is still a lot of research that needs to be done before we can produce a limitless supply of human dopamine-producing neurons that are suitable for human therapies for treating Parkinson's Disease. We estimate that early stage human clinical trials may commence within the next 5-7 years, keeping in mind that the estimate .... is only a best case scenario estimate and many circumstances beyond our control can significantly delay our road to the clinic." I imagine this effort would take less time if there were federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Incidentally, no one has yet reported being able to develop dopamine-producing neurons from adult stem cells. According to http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/smn/stories/011601/ LOCstemcell.shtml, Tuesday, January 16, 2001, BresaGen has moved its stem cell project to Athens GA. Phil Tompkins ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn