Science and Technology Daily (Reporter Zhao Hanbin) Parkinson's disease is the "third killer" of middle-aged and elderly people after tumors and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
Recently, a reporter from Science and Technology Daily learned from the Institute of Primate Translational Medicine of Kunming University of Science and Technology that the team of Academician Ji Weizhi and Professor Li Tianqing of the institute has made important progress in the application of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Relevant research results were published online in the international journal "Nature Partner Journal - Parkinson's Disease".
At present, there are more than 3 million patients with Parkinson's disease in my country, and the annual medical expenses exceed 200 billion yuan.
The morbidity and mortality of this disease are very high, with the mortality rate as high as 66% within 6 years.
Conventional clinical treatment methods, long-term use will bring obvious side effects, and there is a risk of failure in the later stage.
Therefore, the development of safe, effective, economical and suitable treatment methods for Parkinson's disease patients has always been the direction of the entire medical field.
The team of Li Tianqing and Ji Weizhi spent 8 years concentrating on the development of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells that can permanently and stably secrete dopamine neurotransmitters for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. After transplanting them into rat and monkey models of Parkinson's disease, In situ reconstitution of the midbrain dopamine circuit can be achieved by restoring striatal dopamine levels and can rapidly restore motor and non-motor impairment deficits in monkey models of acute and chronic Parkinson's disease.
The 5-year results evaluation has proved the safety and effectiveness of this method, showing the great potential of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells in the future clinical treatment of Parkinson's disease.
This study strongly supports the significant therapeutic effect of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cell transplantation in different Parkinson's disease models, and its safety can be fully evaluated before transplantation; at the same time, it can achieve large-scale and standardized expansion of cells and Establish a stable quality control system for cell drug development.
This method can treat most Parkinson's diseases including severe ones, and the results of transplantation can be effective within 2 weeks, which is beneficial to the evaluation of transplantation effects and reduces clinical costs.