Cultured adult cells transplanted into the human brain could offer a
cure for neurological illnesses such as Hunting-ton鈥檚 chorea, Parkinson鈥檚
disease and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. The same process, suggests inventor Bruce
Cherksey, may also help epileptics.
Adult tissue rarely survives more than a few weeks when transplanted
directly into the brain. In a lengthy international patent (WO 93/14790),
however, New York University claims the 鈥榰nexpected discovery鈥� that culturing
adult cells on tiny glass beads before a transplant makes them far more
likely to survive in the brain. The glass beads have a diameter of less
than 100 micrometres and the cultured cells adhere to the surface by a
coating of collagen.
Cherksey cultured adult adrenal chromaffin cells, which secrete the
neurotransmitter dopamine. By injecting them into the brains of rats with
Parkinson鈥檚 disease, he managed to correct the deficit in dopamine. He claims
that nearly 100 per cent of cells injected on beads remained alive in the
test animals鈥� brains for the entire test period of 180 days. They ran similar
tests with guinea pigs and monkeys, and then tried culturing cells from
human tissue, for injection into the brains of rats.
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The patent admits to no full understanding of how the process works,
only that it does. Cherksey believes that patients suffering from epilepsy
may also benefit from the implantation of beads coated with genetically
engineered cells which are already known to control epilepsy by producing
polyamines such as spermidine.
