(JP) Researchers team up to seek CJD remedy

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http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20020824wo71.htm

 

Researchers team up to seek CJD remedy

 

25 Aug 2002

Yomiuri Shimbun

 

Researchers at two Hokkaido universities are

collaborating in an experiment to directly transplant

stem cells to repair nerve tissue damaged by an

accumulation of prions in the brains of

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) sufferers, sources

said Friday.

 

The experiment by Sapporo Medical University and

Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary

Medicine is attracting great interest, as it is being

conducted amid public anxiety over the possibility of

contracting the disease by eating beef contaminated

with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad

cow disease.

 

The experiment involves combining the stem cells with

genes that produce antibodies to counteract the

virulence of mutated prions and then introducing the

cells into the brain in the hope they will both repair

the central nervous system and remove the prions.

 

A Sapporo Medical University research team led by

Prof. Yoshiro Niitsu has developed the technology to

restore memory and kinetic ability in mice with brain

disorders, by transplanting stem cells with various

growth capacities into their brains.

 

Meanwhile, researchers at Obihiro University, led by

Prof. Morikazu Shinagawa, have developed an antibody

that effectively neutralizes the virulence of mutated

prions through their research into BSE.

 

The two universities will contribute their

technologies to the experiment, in which they will

test various combinations of stem cells and antibodies

on animals to determine their effectiveness.

 

CJD causes the brain to rapidly stop functioning,

sometimes causing dementia. Patients remain bed-ridden

until they die several years after contracting the

disease.

 

About 100 people nationwide die from the disease every

year.

 

Doctors have found that certain kinds of medicine,

such as that used to treat malaria, can temporarily

improve the condition of patients with the disease.

 

However, it has proven difficult for such medicines to

be delivered to the brain, and none of them had any

restorative effect on the nervous system.

 

However, researchers at the two universities believe

that by combining prion-fighting genes with stem

cells, a treatment could be formulated to combat

mutated prions and simultaneously repair the nervous

system.

 

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun

 

 

 

 

 

 

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