NABR Board member Dr. Marina Emborg and University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist Su-Chun Zhang discussed their success in avoiding complications with nonhuman primates (NHP) immune systems with the neurons created from induced pluripotent stem cells in a Nature Medicine study published Monday. The researchers demonstrated the reversal of Parkinson’s symptoms, such as debilitating movement and depression, in NHPs is possible.  

“This result in primates is extremely powerful, particularly for translating our discoveries to the clinic,” Dr. Zhang said.  Within six months, Emborg and Zhang noticed the NHPs, who received grafts of their own cells, had doubled, and tripled their dopamine levels. The neuron-grafting method in monkeys has proven to be an essential step toward a treatment against Parkinson's disease. Dr. Zhang aspires to begin this method on human patients in the near future.

You can read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01257-1