fixaging

Repairing brain damage has come one step closer. As a Swiss research team discovered that an animals brain cells, can be used to replace neurons which have degenerated in primates who have simulated asymptomatic Parkinson’s disease, providing a degree of protection for the brain and even potentially being useful in brain damage and in restoring function to the brain. The adult monkey brain cells, were obtained from cortical biopsy and kept in culture for a few weeks.

“We aimed at determining whether auto grafted cells derived from cortical grey matter, cultured for one month and re-implanted in the caudate nucleus of dopamine depleted primates, effectively survived and migrated,” was said by Dr. Jean-Francoise Brunet who, with colleagues, published the study in Cell Transplantation (18:7) (freely available). “The autologous, re-implanted cells survived at an impressively high rate of 50 percent for four months post-implantation.”.

The usage of neural grafts to improve function post lesions or degeneration of the central nervous system has already been discovered, however, this study indicated that it is possible to replace depleted neurons in a restricted brain area and to negate any of the controversies accompanying fetal cell transplants as well as immune rejection which hamper progress.

Researchers saw that the new cells migrated, re-implanted into the right caudate nucleus, and went through the corpus callosum reaching the contralateral striatum. The cells were found in the dopamine depleted region of the caudate nucleus. This study was replicated in primates with the same success that the research team had reported using laboratory mice. According to the researchers, the cultured cells exhibited neural progenitor characteristics which may make them useful for brain repair which would be needed after brain damage. “Our results confirm that adult brain cells can be obtained, cryopreserved and kept in culture before being re-implanted in the donor where they survive in vivo for at least four months,” said Dr. Brunet and colleagues.

This procedure gives hope that brain damage can be reversed, as to keep a body fit and healthy it is not only required to maintain but also to be able to enact repairs in case of accidents.

Tags: Regenerative medicine by Matias
No Comments »

More than half a million people in the uk have irreversible blindness which is caused by macular degeneration. This is close to 1 percent of the whole population. A large portion of these are the elderly. The disease is one where there is a progressive loss of vision in the center due to the degeneration of the macula, but there may be hope. A loss of site has a huge impact on quality of life.

A London based team is using a procedure whereby cells are taken from a suprplus human IVF embryo and are used to fix the eye. Professor P. Coffey and Lyndon da Cruz of UCL Institute of Ophthalmology teamed up the Professor P. Andrws of the University of Sheffield, to try and move this treatment into hospitals.

The procedure is as follows: surgical instruments introduced via three one millimeter holes in the eye, are used to go below the retina, then human eye cells from embryonic cells are introduced in a rolled up patch and injected through the hole, where the patch unfolds under the retina. This was initially tested on three sighted pigs and it took only 30 minutes. A human trial run has also been done, where the site of 4 out of 12 patients was repaired, by moving around the tissue of the patient.

Clinical grade cells are being produced in Sheffield for preparation for phase one trials.

Tags: Aging, Regenerative medicine by Matias
No Comments »

Regenerative medicine has the potential to change the face of medicine. It stretches from repopulating skin, to regrowing whole organs. A new heart could be grown from your own stem cells, or muscles could be repopulated countering sarcopenia. It is difficult to understate the importance of this technology.

It may seem odd that horses get better health care than humans, but the main culprit in this is that there is not the same regulatory burden on animal trials as there is on human trials. The intentions of the regulation is not have anyone die by a treatment, however what seems not to be taken into the equation is all the people which will be saved in the future, and also how their quality of life may be improved. I would argue that it is better to have 9 years of life at full fitness than 12 years of disability.

Back in 2005 the fightaging.org blog noted that in 2002, horses have enjoyed the benefits of early stem cell therapies.

In the new treatment, a damaged tendon is rapidly “repopulated” by flexible new tendon tissue, rather than leathery scar tissue that naturally forms over a period of up to 18 months. About 70 per cent of treated horses have returned to racing form – more than double the percentage that would be expected had they received conventional treatment.

You read that correctly from 2002 this treatment is already being used.

Tags: Regenerative medicine by Matias
No Comments »