Parkinson’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease caused by the destruction of neurons in the brain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. The disease is manifested by progressive tremor. Today, Parkinson’s disease is considered to be incurable, the symptoms are alleviated with the help of dopaminergic drugs.
Experimental studies have shown that the introduction of stem cells into the substantia nigra of the brain of mice restores the impaired production of dopamine. The first published attempts of cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease date back to 1987, and it was shown that stem cells injected into the brains of patients were still present there 20 years later.
In 2018, the world’s first clinical study began in Japan, in which patients with Parkinson’s disease were injected with induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS-cells), their discovery was awarded by the Nobel Prize in 2012.
In August 2023, the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) approved a clinical trial (phase 1-2) involving the use of induced pluripotent stem cells obtained from the own cells of the patient. Cell therapy will be performed for moderate to severe Parkinson’s disease in California (USA). Today, doctors’ hopes for defeating this serious disease are linked to personalized cell therapy.
