Yet another promising breakthrough has occurred in adult stem-cell research.
Australian scientists have unveiled new research that suggests a cure for Parkinson's disease may be found in human olfactory mucosal stem cells. The Griffith University study published in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells derived from the noses of Parkinson's patients were used to successfully treat rats that had been induced with Parkinson's symptoms. All of the rats improved and there were no tumors as a result of the treatment. Dr. David Prentice is senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council (FRC) and one of the country's foremost exports on stem-cell research. He says the Australian study is yet another example of how adult stem cells effectively repair problems in the body. "Now if you think ahead, what [this research] means is any patient – including a Parkinson's patient – could actually supply their own cells to be changed into the type of tissue you need and then implanted into the body to repair damage," Prentice comments. "And, of course, it's your own cells, so there's no transplant rejection." And because they are adult stem cells, he explains, there are no tumors. Prentice says the press has paid little attention to the Australian study or the six other stories that have come out in the past few days about adult stem cells. "They seem just so focused on embryonic," he says of the media. "It might be ideological, it might be just ignorance; but when it comes to actually thinking of the patients first, the bottom line is still adult stem cells. Embryonic [cells] – all of the ethical problems aside, and those are huge – have tremendous practical problems ... with tumors, with transplant rejection, with getting the cells to function the way you want them to" Prentice contends. But the FRC spokesman notes adult stem-cell research simply involves taking "normal repair cells" and convincing them to work on a different "repair problem" within the body. A friend of some of the Australian scientists who are working on the nasal stem-cell project, Prentice says they plan to begin performing trials on monkeys in the next year or two and then on actual Parkinson's patients in five years.
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