Hi All, I am new to this group. I have a keen interest in research that is going on in Parkinson's treatment. Lately I noticed discussion about Stem Cell and Parkinson treatment and hence I thought it is worth sharing what I have learned from reading various articles. Therapeutic approach for the Parkinson's are : Medical, Surgical and Stem cell, a late edition to the inventory. Drawback of the Medical and Surgical therapies is that it can not hold the disease progression. It has always stimulated researchers to look for an option that can hold the progression of the disease. Researcher are founding Stem cell as a potential answer of this problem Let us start with basics. What are Stem Cells : Stem cells are undifferentiated cells without mature tissue-specific characteristics, and they are able to proliferate to reproduce themselves. They are also able to transform into a type of cell called progenitor cells that can in turn differentiate into one or more cell types under proper condition. The key properties of stem cells, namely, self renewal and multipotentiality, have made such cells very attractive alternative cell sources for neural transplantation. Purpose of Stem cell is to simply to provide dopaminergic neurons to replace the lost functions of degenerated neurons. There are several types of Stem cells that are under consideration, each with specific advantage and drawback. I believe, at this stage, it would not be appropriate to go into details of them, but I would be happy to come up with the details if someoone is interested. However, this mode of treatment also faces challenges. One of the most important one amongst it is concern for "immunological rejection". Our immune system recognizes these cells as a foreign and hence attack them. Hence, although Stem cell therapy seems very promising one, and may be in turn proves to be revolutionary, it needs to go through rigorous testing under various clinical, scientific and ethical criteria. Regards, Pawan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn