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I have been reading your many questions as to why the work of Dr. Levesque has not been mentionend more in the media. In November, 2002, Grassroots Connection (GRC), an advocacy website - co-edited by Paula Wittekind, Linda Herman, and myself - conducted an interview at the height of interest of Dennis Turner (NOT Dr. Dennis Turner) a Parkinson's patient who had autologous (his own) cell injections into his brain. The entire interview can be found at http://grassrootsconnection.com/ Dr. Michel Levesque (correct spelling) was working at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA and as an Associate Professor at UCLA, but had personal interests in a company which he owned in Canada. Part of the GRC interview states: Using an adult's own neural stem cells, Dr. Levesque reports that after culturing the cells to grow into mature, dopamine-producing neurons and then *reimplanting them into the patient, an 80% improvement in symptoms continues in the patient 3 years post-implantation. The patient, a 57-year old former fighter pilot, needed no immunosuppression to overcome rejection. Interestingly, although the patient experienced an increase in measured dopamine following the implantation, the dopamine level eventually returned to the original low measurement taken prior to surgery. Something else appears to also be contributing to the symptom relief. *NOTE that this was a reimplanting of Turner's own cells. He had previously had a DBS procedure when Dr. Levesque took some of his own brain cells. That means he had two surgeries. There has been some question by the FDA and other professionals about the protocol followed by Dr. Levesque. A few years later, Turner had a set-back, and I have not heard anything since that time. This is ENTIRELY SPECULATION on my part, but the FDA has either held up the trial to work out study specifics , or Turner is not doing so well. AS it is now set up, one's brain would have to be drilled into twice; once to retrieve cells, and another to implant them. The experiment does warrant further studies, so let's keep a lookout. Peggy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn