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Just read an interesting article about GDNF. Will attempt to attach it.
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BUSINESS WEEK ONLINE NEWS FLASH!
February 6, 1997
Edited by Thane Peterson
TAMING THE TREMORS OF PARKINSON'S
A new study shows that gene therapy can halt the brain damage caused by
Parkinson's disease -- at least in rats.
Parkinson's disease afflicts some half-million Americans, from boxer
Mohammed Ali to Attorney General Janet Reno. It occurs when nerve cells in a
section of the brain known as the substantia nigra degenerate and die. As a
result, the neurons stop producing a vital neurotransmitter, dopamine,
causing the characteristic tremors and slow movements of Parkinson's
victims.
Scientists don't know why the nerve cells die. But they have learned that
proteins known as neurotrophic factors are necessary to keep the cells
healthy. And researchers found that one such factor, called GDNF, is able to
keep the dopamine-producing nerves alive.
But how can doctors deliver a steady flow of GDNF to the brains of
Parkinson's patients? Injecting the substance is obviously impractical.
That's why a team of researchers led by Martha Bohn, associate professor of
neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Rochester, decided to try gene
therapy. The idea: Hook the gene for GDNF onto a modified virus, then use
the viral delivery system to "infect" brain cells with the gene. Those cells
that get the gene then start making GDNF on their own.
Working with scientists at Genetic Therapy Inc. and the University of Iowa,
Bohn's Rochester team first exposed rat brains to a toxic chemical that
slowly kills dopamine-producing neurons, mimicking Parkinson's disease. Then
they injected the GDNF gene. The results, reported in the February 7, 1997,
issue of Science, were startling. Over a period of six weeks, neurons in
untreated rats were three to four times more likely to die than neurons in
the rats that received the gene therapy.
The approach is still years away from the clinic, cautions Rochester team
member Derek Choi-Lundberg, but it does raise hope that gene therapy may
eventually be able to tackle brain diseases such as Parkinson's.
By John Carey in Washington
News Flash Archives
Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All right reserved.
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