New Frontiers - brain repair

May 12, 2004

Hello Everyone:

I watched a show hosted by Alan Alda on PBS called New Frontiers last

night. It was on brain research. In one part he was interviewing a

lady about what it was like to develop Alzheimers. She very

coherently told of losing short term memory and how she could cover-

up her bloopers long before anyone knew. She talked about how she

felt so frustrated - a constant state of anxiety as the disease had

progressed into larger sections of her brain.

Did you notice that last sentence was past tense? She volunteer as a

human experiment at UCLA. She knew it could be immediate death but

played the odds. UCLA took her skin cells ....yes skin cells...and

treated them in petri dishes with stimulants that caused them to

produce a specific growth hormone. This bypassed the stem cell

controversy. Then with the help of a scanner, injected these cells

directly into the areas of her brain that was dying. The growth

hormone stimulated the neuronal stem cells located in her brain to

repair the damage. UCLA is still monitoring for long term affects so

no study has been published yet.

If this works it will not only fix the Alzheimer's brain but will

carry over into Parkinson's, Huntington's disease, and upper neuron

disease such as PLS. Because MS and ALS also affects the peripheral

nerves it would get at part but not all the problem.

This was just one small part of the many brain research projects

discussed. This section to me put HOPE right at our fingertips.

They mentioed that the transcript of the show was on www.PBS.org

under 'Frontiers'. I didn't check it out though.

Enjoy and have some chocolate just in case.

Eva in WV

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