Nov 04 1998
A NEW technique of growing people's own brain cells in a laboratory promises to enable transplants and cure conditions such as spinal cord injuries, stroke, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
Neurologists from the Cedars- Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles have developed the technique of regenerating brain cells out of the body.
Medical researchers Michel Levesque and Toomas Neuman target specific brain cells which they remove in surgery, grow in a laboratory and then implant back into the patient's head where they continue to grow.
"The implications of this are enormous," Dr Levesque said.
The researchers have received approval to trial the technique of patients suffering from strokes, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and spinal cord injuries.
Dr Levesque said using the technique to treat degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease was relatively straightforward.
"Treating stroke and spinal cord injuries with regenerated cells is infinitely more complex," he said.
"We have to identify, grow, and re-introduce a complex mixture of cells to restore a damaged circuitry.
"We're working on a human protocol for spinal cord injury now, and hope to start treating patients with regenerated cells within the next six months."
In the procedure, the surgeons remove a small piece of cortex (outer layer) from the part of the brain which is capable of being regenerated. The cells are then frozen until the team is ready to regrow them in Petri dishes.
Dr Neuman said the cells were grown in biologically sterile incubators, like baby incubators, which had a substance made up of several growth factors.
"If you have all the necessary things they divide and grow," he said. "If you don't have them, these little guys die."
The researchers said their technique had been developed after long-term research into the regeneration of brain cells of birds and animals and it would be ready to be used in human clinical trials in six months.
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