This is a review of Dr. Levesque's stem cell research seminar presented at the YOPA symposium in Albuquerque. The review was written by Nikki Bryce, who attended the symposium with her husband Max from Australia. She originally posted the review at mGH's Brain Talk Communities website.
This is promising....
I have returned back home from a wonderful and exciting trip to Albuquerque, where I met some of the caring people who contribute to this forum.
I decided to post this as a more optimistic look at where some research is heading. It is my personal review of the Autologous Stem cell Therapy seminar by Dr M Levesque at the YOPA symposium 2004.
Dr Levesque delivered a concise presentation of his work involving autologous adult stem cells. I find this area of research to be exciting with respect to treating idiopathic parkinson’s and atypical (PD plus syndromes). Currently Dr Levesque has selected patients for his Phase 2 clinical trial and has selected one patient with atypical parkinson’s. This stem cell research is unique as it uses adult neural stem cells obtained from the patient’s own brain tissue. Controversy surrounding embryonic and fetal stem cells are therefore irrelevant. In his first trial, a small piece of tissue was obtained when DBS surgery was performed.
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become different cell types according to the stimulus they receive from their surrounding environment. For example, the cells can become neurons including a percentage of dopaminergic neurons that produce dopamine, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes (supporting glial cells). As cells become differentiated they take on characteristics of the cell type and cell surface markers appear that can be used to positively identify the cells in a laboratory setting.
In the initial piece of brain tissue there are very few undifferentiated stem cells. They have to be carefully grown in specifically prepared culture media in flasks with the appropriate chemicals added to encourage differentiation into the required cell types. They are then maintained in highly controlled incubators. This is a laborious task as the cells require feeding and then separating into new flasks as the cell population grows. It takes many months to get enough cells to put back into the brain.
Dr Levesque’s method involves using a “cocktail” of cells including neurons and glial cells that are returned to the patient. In atypical parkinson’s (PD plus disorders), it is reported that the glial cells play a significant role and this is an major difference in his method compared to other transplantation models where only dopaminergic neurons are implanted. There is a delay in response to the implanted cells and patients should not expect to see much difference in their symptoms before about 6 months. It is not a quick fix!! It takes time for the implanted cells to gain normal functionality. We need to remember that approx 80% of dopamine production is lost before PD symptoms appear. Only one patient has been treated, but the results appear very promising. He received 1,800,000 cells on one side only and gradually improved to needing no medication. The estimated survival of these cells following implantation was 630,000 neurons, 98,000 dopaminergic neurons, 42,000 glutamate and 130,000 GABA neurons. The improvement lasted for 5 years before symptoms reappeared but more so on the untreated side. He now wants to have the same procedure on the untreated side.
My personal response to Dr Levesque’s research is that this technique is the most exciting and promising to date. It demonstrates the ability to isolate adult neural stem cells from within the patient’s own brain tissue which can be grown, differentiated and expanded into a viable “cocktail” of cells. These can be successfully transplanted back into the patient with a marked improvement in clinical symptoms. While it doesn’t address the underlying pathogenic mechanism that results in PD symptoms, replacement of cells that can produce dopamine and more importantly other supporting neural cells has been successful. There is little in the way of treatment offered to people with PD plus syndromes and this technique offers significant promise. Let’s hope the next trial where greater numbers of cells are to be evaluated will demonstrate the efficacy of this technique.
If I haven’t explained this well enough please ask me to clarify and I will do my best.
Take care,
Nikki
CumbyCrawfish
First 
Delete Replies
Recommend
Delete