Serum from placental cord blood is a critical nutrient in tissue culture with fetal embryonic tissue for our ongoing research with rat, primate, and human fetal brain tissue tranplants for Parkinson's disease. We have been using placental cord blood from University Hospital since 1990. We have been funded by NIH for this double blind study since 1994 and will be continuing tranplants on this and other protocols for at least the next five years. Brain implants with embryonic-dopamine cells offer the only current hope for restoring both the biochemical and anatomic defects of Parkinson's disease. Research in rat and monkey models of Parkinson's disease has shown that transplants of fetal dopamnine cells from early in gestation can restore performance deficits in these animals. We are now in the fifth year of conducting a placebo-controlled, double-blind evaluation of embryonic dopaminergic implants in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. The study objective is to compare with placebo surgery, the efficacy, tolerability, safety, and the effect of embryonic dompaminergic implants when injected into the putamen bilaterally.
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