Denny, I found one article about this new procedure. I think this was what you were referring to. It does sound hopeful, for other neurological diseases, as well as PD. The article said they will be testing the transplant in 24 more patients over the next two years. Let's hope the results are good. Linda Herman For cell transplants, is one brain better than two? American Medical News; Chicago; May 3, 1999; Mark Moran; Volume: 42 Issue: 17 Start Page: 29 ISSN: 00011843 Subject Terms: Transplants & implants Brain Cells Medical ethics Abstract: Neurosurgeons recently performed the first-ever autologous brain cell transplant for a Parkinson's patient. This procedure could obviate ethical problems associated with fetal or porcine cell transplants. AT A GLANCE An experimental cell transplant for Parkinson's disease using autologous brain cells could sidestep ethical and scientific problems associated with fetal and porcine cell transplants. AUTOLOGOUS BLOOD DONATIONS are old hat, but a brain cell transplant using the patient's own cells could turn a new page in cell grafting for neurological conditions. In March, neurosurgeons at Cedars-- Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles performed the first-ever autologous brain cell transplant for a patient with Parkinson's disease. The cells, harvested from the patient's cortex during prior implantation of a deep brain stimulator, were "regenerated" in culture dishes using growth factors and then differentiated into dopamine-producing neurons. The regenerated cells were transplanted into the patient's striatum, where it is hoped they will repair neurological function and improve clinical symptoms. Physicians at Cedars-Sinai said the procedure could obviate ethical and scientific problems associated with fetal and porcine cell transplantation. "What we have is a protocol in which we don't have to harvest 12 or 15 fetuses, we don't have to give immunosuppressant therapy, and we don't have to worry about viral disease transmission," said Michel Levesque, MD, director of the hospital's neurofunctional surgery center. The procedure draws on new findings from animal studies showing that certain brain cells behave like "progenitor" cells; when cultured in specific media, they can be engineered to perform different neuronal functions. Cells that grow into dopamine-producing neurons then are selected for transplantation, explained Toomas Neuman, PhD, director of neurobiology at Cedars-Sinai and Dr. Levesque's colleague in the experiment. But the process of differentiating dopamine-producing cells in lab cultures is not yet perfect, and many of the estimated 5 million transplanted cells will die without producing dopamine. "At this point, it's not a 100% pure culture," Dr. Levesque said. "We predict only 10% of the transplanted cells will survive." Despite this limitation, he said the procedure possesses a unique conceptual elegance in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. "Instead of delivering dopamine with a pill, we are using the patient's own cells to secrete dopamine [in the region of the brain] where it is needed," he said. "We can call this a drug delivery system via cell therapy" In the next two years, 24 patients with Parkinson's will receive the transplant procedure. Patients will be evaluated for improvement in clinical symptoms and receive periodic positron emission tomography scans to determine if transplanted cells are producing dopamine. In time, Drs. Levesque and Neuman hope to extend their autologous cell transplant procedure to treat stroke and spinal chord injuries, which would be a considerably more complicated undertaking. "Treating neurodegenerative diseases by introducing one type of neurotransmitter cell into a particular part of the brain is comparatively straightforward," Dr. Levesque said. "But treating stroke and spinal cord injuries with regenerated cells is infinitely more complex. We have to identify, grow and reintroduce a complex mixture of cells to restore damaged circuitry" Doctors involved in treating stroke and neurological conditions said the autologous procedure is conceptually intriguing, but that cell grafting remains an unproven novelty. "The concept makes good sense," said Joseph Broderick, MD, professor of neurology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, noting that use of autologous cells would eliminate potential for immunological rejection. But Dr. Broderick said results from cell transplant trials for Parkinson's had been mixed at best. He echoed Dr Levesque in emphasizing the significantly greater complexity involved in reversing neurological damage from stroke or spinal chord injury An experimental cell transplant for 12 stroke patients at the University of Pittsburgh Stroke Institute so far has proven to be safe with no complications from surgery, said institute Director Lawrence Wechsler, MD. But while some patients have reported subjective improvement in symptoms, there has been no dramatic change on objective measures of functioning. The 12 patients in the protocol will continue to be evaluated using functional magnetic resonance imaging.