Thank you to all of you who joined us on Monday evening.
We were all treated to an amazing presentation by Professor Roger Barker, explaining in great depth and with simplicity the journey so far and future hopes of cell-based dopamine replacement therapies.
It is certainly an exciting area of research that seems distinctly possible in a relatively short time scale.
For those of you who missed it, the session and Q & A was recorded and is now available on our YouTube channel, accessed from this link:-
Thank you for sharing the latest excellent presentation to/from NoSilverBullet. Dr. Barker is an excellent communicator. As Dr. Barker notes, stem cell therapy is not a cure, but it gives me hope.
I appreciate his ideas about two Parkinson’s subtypes and tailoring trials accordingly.
Thank you for bringing Dr. Barker's discussion about cell based therapies to our attention. He gave us insight into methodology, successes and failures along with the difficulties one encounters in clinical trials. Most importantly he gave us hope for the future.
Thanks for sharing Dr. Barker's excellent presentation. It was easy to follow and understand it.
The stem cell therapy he presented is for younger patients. However, I believe several forum members don't fit that category as they are over 70. Most likely, they won't be around when it goes from the trial phase to successful procedure outcome.
Personally, I believe in autogenous stem cell therapy, not embryonic.
Thank you very much Despe. Your point about age is unfortunately perfectly correct. We can only hope that stem cell therapies become available the soonest and benefit as many of us as possible.
I watched the entire video. I have a problem of losing focus when watching movie-length videos but the 'barking-mad ' Dr Barker kept my interest. He mentioned DAT scans were not helpful but PET scans were helpful when following progress in test subjects. I thought they were essentially the same thing?
I've been long interested in stem cell therapy. In the past I had bone marrow taken from my hip and injected into my Achilles tendon. I read a study that said sq fat has thousands more stem cells per cc when compared to an equal volume of bone marrow. Stem cells are are young calls that haven't yet turned into functional cells. The theory is that stem cells can decide on which type of cell to become based on which type of cell is needed.
I used that idea to treat a dog with bilateral ACL damage. I collected fat from his abdomen and injected it into his stifles (knees). Six months later he was still a working Retriever. He had been on the verge of being euthanized because he could no longer hunt/retrieve.
No cell in the body lasts forever. Our bodies produce new cells as the older cells lose function. But In PD substantia nigral cells are not being produced. So we take L-dopa. Stem cells have the same problem of not lasting forever. If the stems cells die the disease takes over. Dr Barker mentions that his stem cells don't last forever but last many years and can be re-transplanted as needed in the future.
I can’t remember for sure but I suspect it is because of the invasive nature of the dopamine cell replacement transplantation. This approach involves injecting new dopamine producing neurons into the part of the brain to replace the dead or dying neurons. I will check with R Barker next time I correspond with him.
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Feedback from a PD research scientist in the department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge (UK), on PASADENA Trial...
