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There were 3 studies on the long term survival fetal tissue implants recently published in Nature Medicine ONline April 6, 2008. The abstracts are below and also another news article that compares the 3 studies. Although many of the news articles highlighted only the problems, there were actually some promising results. Reuters, April 6, 2008 Parkinson's brain cell transplants last for years By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transplants of brain cells given to Parkinson's disease patients survive for 10 years or more, three teams of researchers reported on Sunday, but at least some of the transplants were damaged. The researchers disagree about whether this damage shows that Parkinson's disease is a long-term, ongoing process that continues to attack the brain into old age, or the result of the transplants themselves. But they agree that their studies, published in the journal Nature Medicine, demonstrate the benefits of the sometimes controversial brain cell transplants. "I think these findings lend much optimism to future work," said Dr. Ole Isacson of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, who worked on one of the studies. read full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN0434485120080406 Abstracts of the research studies (all from Nature Medicine Online (4/6/08): Lewy bodies in grafted neurons in subjects with Parkinson’s disease suggest host-to-graft disease propagation Jia-Yi Li1, Elisabet Englund2, Janice L Holton3, Denis Soulet1, Peter Hagell4, Andrew J Lees3, Tammaryn Lashley3, Niall P Quinn5, Stig Rehncrona6, Anders Bjo¨rklund7, Ha°kan Widner4, Tamas Revesz3,9, Olle Lindvall4,8,9 & Patrik Brundin1,9 Two subjects with Parkinson’s disease who had long-term survival of transplanted fetal mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons (11–16 years) developed a-synuclein–positive Lewy bodies in grafted neurons. Our observation has key implications for understanding Parkinson’s pathogenesis by providing the first evidence, to our knowledge, that the disease can propagate from host to graft cells. However, available data suggest that the majority of grafted cells are functionally unimpaired after a decade, and recipients can still experience long-term symptomatic relief. Lewy body–like pathology in long-term embryonic nigral transplants in Parkinson’s disease Jeffrey H Kordower1, Yaping Chu1, Robert A Hauser2, Thomas B Freeman3 & C Warren Olanow4 Fourteen years after transplantation into the striatum of an individual with Parkinson’s disease, grafted nigral neurons were found to have Lewy body–like inclusions that stained positively for a-synuclein and ubiquitin and to have reduced immunostaining for dopamine transporter. These pathological changes suggest that Parkinson’s disease is an ongoing process that can affect grafted cells in the striatum in a manner similar to host dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. These findings have implications for cell-based therapies and for understanding the cause of Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine neurons implanted into people with Parkinson’s disease survive without pathology for 14 years Ivar Mendez1,5, Angel Vin˜uela2,5, Arnar Astradsson2, Karim Mukhida1, Penelope Hallett2, Harold Robertson1, Travis Tierney2, Renn Holness1, Alain Dagher3, John Q Trojanowski4 & Ole Isacson2 Postmortem analysis of five subjects with Parkinson’s disease 9–14 years after transplantation of fetal midbrain cell suspensions revealed surviving grafts that included dopamine and serotonin neurons without pathology. These findings are important for the understanding of the etiopathogenesis of midbrain dopamine neuron degeneration and future use of cell replacement therapies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn