Cure Parkinson’s Research Update meeting

Event Notes:

Guest speaker: Roger Barker, Professor of Clinical Neuroscience and Honorary Consultant in Neurology, the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

Transplantation of different types of dopamine cells into the site in the brain where dopamine normally works – namely the putamen – has been attempted with variable results in recent years; but importantly these have shown to work, in some cases, with major benefits lasting for many years, with evidence of dopamine cell survival almost 25 years after the cells were transplanted.

More recently, the ability to make large numbers of dopamine cells (of the type lost in Parkinson’s) from stem cells, has opened up the possibility of taking this approach out to a much greater number of people with Parkinson’s – assuming that they can be shown to have a robust and consistent benefit in clinical trials. Such trials are now just starting and in this talk Professor Roger Barker will briefly summarise the history of dopamine cell therapies for Parkinson’s, where we now are with these new stem cell trials and what the future might look like for the Parkinson’s community using such a therapy.

Join us for what promises to be an interesting and informative meeting.