Personalized Stem Cell Treatments Are Being Developed For Parkinson’s Disease

A nurse is caring for an elderly woman.


Human trials are about to begin to see if scientists can reverse-engineer a sick person’s cells to develop personalized stem cell treatments for diseases which are hard to treat.  Parkinson’s Disease will be a big focus of this project, as well as macular degeneration and damaged hearts.  Aspen Neuroscience is one of several groups participating in these trials.  In Parkinson’s Disease, neurons die and lose the ability to make the chemical dopamine.  This results in uncontrollable shaking.  Aspen Neuroscience will test whether injecting new cells based on the person’s own DNA, can stop a person from shaking.  This is great news as Parkinson’s is a very debilitating disease.