Two small studies published just recently in Nature offer early, but important validation that stem cell treatments for Parkinson’s disease are viable.
They also are a step toward a future where stem cells can be used not just to treat, but ideally to repair or prevent damage to the brain. Getting there will take incredible coordination and a continued commitment to understanding the drivers of neurodegenerative diseases; we can’t fix what we don’t know is broken.
The treatments, one originally developed by a team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the other by researchers in Kyoto, Japan, are the culmination of decades of work to figure out how to turn stem cells into functional therapies for Parkinson’s. (To be clear, these stem cells are designed in a lab and are not the same as the dubious therapies sold in stem cell clinics — none of which are FDA-approved.)
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