Scientists artificially grow brain cells from Parkinson's patients to find treatment

Ten year study

The UK's population is ageing and with it comes an increased risk of developing age-related diseases such as Parkinson's. About 70% of dopamine producing brain cells will have been lost by the time a sufferer visits the doctor, with symptoms that include difficulties with movement and a resting tremor. A progressive neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson's affects about 120,000 people in the UK.

Dr Richard Wade-Martins and his team at Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre, are leading a groundbreaking large-scale study aimed at finding cures for the disease. The project aims to recruit 2,000 Parkinson's patients in the next five years and will continue for the next ten years.

'Disease-in-a-dish' approach

Wade-Martins explains the key areas that they are studying. The first is testing blood for proteins that could be early indications of the disease. Also, MRI brain imaging will monitor the loss of brain cells while patients are living with the disease. A third approach is taking sample skin cells and reprogramming them into stem cells. These can then be converted into a brain cell called a dopamine neurone. The neurones will be grown in a dish in the lab and the behaviour of brain cells from a Parkinson's patient will be compared with a healthy individual's. He says, 'to study how these neurones in the dish live and die and how they work, will hopefully tell us why these cells are dying in disease and that's the main part of the work.'

Protective therapy

Patients are enthusiastic to help and even though it may not help them, it will help people who get the disease in the future. Wade-Martins hopes their research can develop predictive indicators about when the disease will occur. As he says, 'all patients are degenerating and getting slowly worse and the earlier you can arrest the disease the more beneficial it will be.'

'Like all research it takes a long time,' he continues. 'The second challenge will be to develop drugs and treatments to correct the problem with these cells. This has to be taken through animal models and eventually into human clinical trial. It's a long process, but to make models of the neurones in the dish in the lab (and they are the same as those dying and degenerating in the brain of the patient) is a great achievement.'

http://www.britishcouncil.org/science-cubed.htm