Early next year, a new treatment for Parkinson’s disease involving tissue transplants will undergo its first trial with patients, including a group of Britons. Stem cells grown in the laboratory and transformed into nerve cells will be used to replace those destroyed by the disease.
« It has taken a long time to get to this point, but hopefully the results of these trials will mean that within a few years we will be able to offer tissue transplants as a standard treatment for Parkinson’s disease. said Professor Roger Barker, from the University of Cambridge, to the Guardian. Scientists hope the treatment will be available in five years.