Stem cells delay disease onset in mice with neurodegenerative disease
As
soon as I saw this title I thought this would be something cool to read and
share! Stem cell research, as we know, is a very interesting and young field. This
article is talking about how stem cells have helped detoxify poisoned brains of
rats for a period of time. This paper is talking about a neurodegenerative
disease called Infantile Neural Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (Batten Disease). In this
disease the brain cells lack the enzymes needed to get rid of the byproducts
made by the cells causing toxicity in the brain. This disease causes seizures,
cognitive and motor decline, blindness and early death.
Palo
Alto, California-based company StemCells Inc. is running trials to find if stem
cell therapy will help this disease. The idea behind these trials is that the
transplanted cells will secrete the missing enzymes, which will improve the health
of the patients. Another research was done earlier by another company for
treating a different disease similar to Batten disease by stem cells and this
study showed improvement to the life span of the rats tested on.
The
major thing they tested for in this research was the toxin, lipofucin, which
builds up in the patients brain and cause the toxicity. After the mice received
the transplant they showed much improvement in health: a 37% decrease of toxin
in their cortex and 50% decrease of toxin in their hippocampus.
The most
interesting aspect of this article, in my opinion, was the improvements seen from
the stem cell therapy. It is important to remember that this is an animal model
which could very well not work on human subjects. It is amazing that science
has come so far, that we are finding cures to diseases that could potentially
be beneficial to humans. Nonetheless stem cell research (or Cures for Batten’s
disease) is a field of research, which in my opinion, should be looked into
much more than it currently is!
The
link:
Baker, Monya. "Stem cells delay disease onset
in mice with neurodegenerative disease." Nature Reports Stem Cells.
(September, 2009): n. page. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.nature.com/stemcells/2009/0909/090910/full/stemcells.2009.119.html>.
This is a very neat article with a lot of information in just a few paragraphs. The very first sentence had me hooked into speeding through the article: "Some brains literally poison themselves." That sentence alone offers a new perspective on neurodegenerative disease; I had never looked at it like that before.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the methods employed by this group of researchers is very easy to understand. As everybody knows, stem cell (especially human) research is a hotly debated scientific ethics topic. Whether you agree or not, the results seen in a study as straight forward as this one are pretty undeniable.
It will be interesting to see if this group of researchers evolve on these initial findings. It was very persuading when they disclosed the fact that none of the 3,000 mice from all projects examining this disease formed a tumor from the cell transplantations. It will be interesting to see if they team up with any other groups to widen the scope of their studies.
For a disease such as the one mentioned above (and for many), those percentages are huge! It really illustrates the fascinating power of the stem cell. Of course, I would have liked to see some raw data and a more in depth discussion of the method used. Nevertheless, it seems quite promising how transplanted cells can have such a profound effect on endogenous cells - as stated in the article. More reproduced research is obviously needed, and that can be difficult since their method is absent in this article. I'd be very interested to see future research on the topic regardless of the animal model used, because any step forward is still a step forward.
ReplyDeleteNice find!
This was a very cool and concise article that summarized the two other articles it referred to. Yes, I would have liked to see a bit more description on how they went about doing these tests and how they obtained their results as Alongoria said, but I think overall it was a well written synopsis. It could be a huge stepping stone in providing understanding of how stem cells can be used and harness what is needed from them. Great choice!
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. It’s crazy to think that our own brain can cause toxicity that can lead to seizures, blindness, and early death. Even thought this study was done on mice I think it is a good start for further research that can possible help humans with this disease. The percentages of the decrease of toxin after the stem cell transplants were pretty successful. This stem cell therapy can be hopeful for the future. I agree with Parsa on how far science has now come and that one day may this therapy can be beneficial to humans.
ReplyDelete