D became an Intel STS semifinalist today, will it help her HYPS application?

DEET
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:52:00 +0000

PBS Frontline is having a special on Feb 3 about Parkinson’s.
You can also watch it online.

I am concerned that researching embryonic stem cells for a cure for Parkinson’s will open up a black hole for research funding dollars, end up with no cure, and cut funding for other approaches to a cure.

Regarding the prospect of finding a cure for Parkinson’s via embryonic stem cell research – at the 2006 World Parkinson Congress I asked the assembled panel of experts at a seminar on E.S. cells what would stop Parkinson’s from simply wiping out the brain cells again, unless they can pinpoint what starts Parkinson’s in the 1st place? There was hardly any response from the panel – one panel member said they no doubt have a lot of work to do. There’s also the problem of how to stop the cells from proliferating too much – a somewhat similar problem led to the moratorium on fetal cell transplantation as a result of the study:

From P.E. Greene & Stanley Fahn’s abstract of:
Status of fetal tissue transplantation for the treatment of advanced Parkinson disease.
Five of 33 implant-treated patients developed involuntary movements (dyskinesias or dystonia) that could not be eliminated by reducing antiparkinsonian medications. These included four patients with the best responses to transplantation

4 patients developed a previously unreported tragic complication: severe dyskinesias in the absence of any levodopa therapy. In 2 patients, the dyskinesias involved craniofacial muscles, leading to dysphagia and requiring placement of a feeding tube in one patient. The other of these 2 patients required treatment with pallidotomy to relieve the dyskinesias. Another patient developed leg dyskinesias severe enough to make walking impossible. Although this has not been proven, a possible explanation of these dyskinesias is excessive growth of the transplanted tissue. Indeed, there is no mechanism for limiting the growth of the cell implants