TRANSEURO : Innovative approach for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease
We are proud to announce the official start of TRANSEURO, Europe’s premiere clinical study on the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients using a cell therapy approach.
There are currently no cures for PD but one of the most effective reparative therapies in patients to date has been with allotransplants of dopamine (DA) neuroblasts obtained from fetal ventral mesencephalic (VM) tissue. However, this cell transplantation approach has given inconsistent results, with some patients doing extremely well and coming off anti-PD medication for years, whilst others have shown no or only modest clinical improvements, and in some cases also developed severe, off-state graft-induced dyskinesias (GIDs).
There is therefore an urgent need to revisit the trials that have already been done with fetal VM tissue in PD patients, with the expectation that a critical reassessment can form the basis for an optimized and more standardized procedure that will translate into more consistently efficacious transplants with minimal side-effects.
TRANSEURO is coordinated by Dr. Roger Barker from the Cambridge University and is gathering a group of international experts, including the key investigators of the previous European and North American trials, who will join forces in a new round of experimental work and cell therapy trials in PD. They will jointly develop new protocols where all previously-tested factors are taken into account.
TRANSEURO is a 5-year Collaborative Project supported through the FP7 European Commission Health programme, contract number 242003.
Contact: Dr. Roger Barker –transeuro.info@gmail.com