http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2005-02-11-3

Compound Spurs Brain Rebuilding from Stem Cells

May improve the odds of a person’s own cells treating neurological diseases

Betterhumans Staff

2/11/2005 2:42 PM

A compound that spurs stem cells to become brain cells may hasten adult stem cell treatments for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The compound, bromodeoxyuridine, naturally becomes part of DNA.

It has also been discovered to make adult human stem cells more likely to become brain cells when they’re implanted in adult rat brains.

The finding, by a research team led by Kiminobu Sugaya of the University of Central Florida, is a step to using stem cells from a person’s blood or bone marrow to replace cells that die in Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

“By using a patient’s own stem cells instead of embryonic stem cells, we’re able to avoid the ethical concerns many people have about stem cell research,” says Sugaya. “We also don’t have to worry about the immune system rejecting the new cells.”

Better control

Besides using bromodeoxyuridine to improve the odds of bone marrow stem cells becoming neural cells, Sugaya and colleagues also showed that they can get them to become retinal cells after being implanted in rats.

This could lead to new treatments for glaucoma and other eye diseases.

Sugaya hopes that further study will lead to better control over stem cells to ensure that they develop properly as brain cells in the brain and retinal cells in the eyes.

The researchers are also testing the use of bromodeoxyuridine to make stem cells from adult bone marrow into other types of cells, such as heart muscle cells.

While more cell culture and animal tests are needed before human trials, Sugaya has cofounded a company called NewNeural to develop and commercialize products that improve the brain’s ability to repair and replace damaged brain cells.

The research is reported in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.