Parkinson’s disease researchers develop cellular ‘invisibility cloak’ to protect neural grafts |...

Florey researchers have engineered a way to fool the immune system into accepting neural grafts as part of the body, rather than attacking them as foreign objects.
The research, published today in Cell Stem Cell, could signal an end to the reliance on drugs necessary to prevent graft rejection, not just for Parkinson’s disease neural grafts, but for other cell transplants.
The study’s lead author, Florey Deputy Director Professor Clare Parish, Head of Stem Cells and Neural Development, said Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition that affects an estimated 10 million people globally and 150,000 people in Australia.*
“Parkinson’s disease causes specific nerve cells – neurons – to die, leading to symptoms that include difficulties moving, tremor, stiffness, and impaired balance. Neural grafting is an emerging treatment to replace those dead neurons,” Professor Parish said.