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Jean and List Members: I had an encounter with Dr. Joe Rogers last year. I was referred to him by Bob Stump, my state rep. Although his research sounded to me like what Dr. Levesque of Cedars Sinai did with Dennis Turner's brain cells over 8 years ago, he was unfamiliar with it when I asked him about it. Strange, it was a big deal. To remind you-all Levesque took Turner's brain cells during a DBS surgery, "cultivated" them and put them back in Turner's brain and he was supposedly symptom free until about 2004 when his PD returned with a vengeance. I called him on 3-24-06 and he confirmed this, but since refuses to shed more light on this subject. Last I heard he was still being touted as a "cure" by the Family Research Council which opposes embryonic stem cell research. Jean, this is all documented in Yvonne Perry's book Right to Recover that I gave you at our luncheon meeting several months ago. Initially, Rogers seemed congenial and fair-minded but got mad at me when I asked Turner by email to clarify his condition. Rogers later apologized to me but I never did visit his lab, feeling very unwelcome. Rogers and the Arizona state legislature oppose ESCR. I concluded that if Turner's temporary improvement was due to the stem cell implantation and not DBS, his PD came back because the same disease process that killed his dopamine producing cells in the first place was still active. It led me to believe that if this is true, any kind of stem cell replacement therapy or treatment is only going to be temporary unless the cause of PD is addressed. I am also surprised to hear about the MJFox grant that you can't find. Please keep us informed about this. This sounds "suspicious" to me. Dr. Levesque's Phase II never did go into effect (as far as I know) even though the FRC made false claims about it. Talk about "mad" scientists!!! I don't think I want to be involved in Roger's trials. I felt he was fishing for subjects when we had our exchange. Bob Stump may have gotten his bill passed that provides $ for adult stem cell research. This seems to me to be a more likely grant source than MJFox. Ray Rayilyn Brown Board Member AZNPF Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: "jean" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 3:41 AM Subject: Research in Arizona. > At the Power Over Parkinson's Conference in Phoenix, November 10, 2007, > Dr. > Joseph Rogers, Sun Health Research Institute, talked about how he had > succeeded in growing dopamine producing neurons from human stem cells - > from > adult stem cells taken from human brains. > > Dr Rogers and his team worked with donated progenitor cells gotten human > brains. These cells were actually excess tissues gotten after some people > had gone through brain surgery. Rather than the surgeons tossing these > cells > (given with permission from the people who had undergone brain surgery), > Dr > Rogers and his team had these human brain cells available for experiments. > > They found progenitor adult stem cells in the brain tissue. And from these > Dr Rogers and his team grew neural - dopamine producing stem cells. We saw > amazing photos of both types of cells. > > His next stem cell experiments will be on primates. And if that testing is > successful, then he and his team will begin trials on humans -with initial > brain surgery on the PWPs to retrieve some brain cells. Those cells will > be > used to grow dopamine-producing neurons. And then later there will be > surgery to implant those autologous cells in the PWP's brain. > > I was told that he has received a 3.5 million grant from the MJFox > Foundation, but I couldn't find any reference to it on the MJFox website. > I'll keep trying using other search terms. > > He believes there will be a cure in his lifetime (he looks like he is in > his > 60s). > > Jean Burns > 480.883.3285 > www.pdplan4life.com > > order holiday cards on www.azapda.org > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn