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Coaxing Stem Cells to Produce Dopamine

For two decades, Iacovitti’s lab has functioned as a sort of birthing room for dopamine cells, with scientists painstakingly coaxing various lines of immature stem or precursor cells into becoming dopamine producers, and characterizing which growth factors, cell receptors and signaling pathways are involved. Much of the work has focused on neural stem cells (also called neural progenitors or neural precursors), which are distinct from the embryonic stem cells that are the subject of political and ethical controversy. Neural stem cells offer the advantage of being “a few steps down the developmental pathway,” Iacovitti says. While they don’t have the capacity to divide endlessly like embryonic stem cells do, they generally differentiate more quickly into dopamine neurons because “they are already committed to
becoming cells in the nervous system,” she says. Using dopamine-specific cells generated from these human neural progenitors, Farber researchers have completed a series of transplants in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease, and have observed functional improvement in motor symptoms.

These studies, combined with the work on purifying dopamine cells, are crucial to realizing the promise that cell replacement therapies have for people with Parkinson’s.

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