Breakthrough discovery may lead to reverse motor neurons death

[Pipis]

I don't know if it's posted here before ....if so feel free to erase it

Breakthrough discovery reveals way of reversing Motor Neurone Disease damage

SCIENTISTS are a step closer to being able to reverse the damage caused by motor neurone disease following a breakthrough discovery by researchers…

www.heraldscotland.com

 

[EricInLA]

Whoa - I've never heard of this, but this sounds verrrrrrry interesting. I'm sure there are reasons not to be too excited about this (because there always are with this disease that us pALS were dumb enough to choose out of all the possible diseases), but until someone tells me what those are, I will allow myself to become mildly excited about this research! OK smart people, chime in. . .

Thank you Pipis for posting.

 

[Samkl]

I’m with you, Eric. It does sound exciting, viable and authoritative.

 

[lisa g]

Article seems alittle confusing, is it stem cells from only pals with gene mutations? Then what's with the diabetic medicine?

 

[Nikki J]

They have been growing motor neurons like this from skin and then blood for quite a while. I first gave a skin sample in 2013. You can certainly do this with any PALS and it has been done in studies.

it sounds like they were probably c9 cells from the description. a recent webinar I think it was Dr Harms explained why FALS research can help everyone because they have used us to identify pathways common to all PALS that they can target. It sounds like this is one. I suspect the drug is Metformin which is in a c9 trial. The research that supported that trial was in c9 mice who were found to lower their c9 biomarker with metformin. There has been a fair amount of buzz about Metformin for neurodegeneration.

I can never get too excited about bench research because I have seen so many failures but the more we understand the better and sooner or later something will work in actual PALS

 

[KimT]

Avoiding spikes in blood sugar is said to contribute to neurogenesis.

 

[lgelb]

Larry was on metformin long before and throughout ALS, with good glycemic control. I am sure that's true of other PALS as well. Of course, no such cases rule it out as a treatment, though it has been studied for more than a decade as such and there are many question marks.

Because ALS has a metabolic component, I agree that avoiding blood sugar spikes is desirable, one of many reasons why I wouldn't use most commercial formulae in a feeding tube.

 

[Sandy14]

Wow, this sounds amazingly promising! If I could get into the trial, I could also fulfill my life's dream of playing golf in Scotland?

 

[GXTrex]

The article says it was done using "motor neurons grown from stem cells collected from people with a genetic mutation known to cause both MND and a form of dementia."

That has to be the C9 mutation right? Are any other genetic als mutations associated with dementia?

 

[Nikki J]

There are others but c9 is the most common

 

[Ed340hp]

The link to read or download the actual research paper is -- here

 

[Jessica231369]

This seems promising, but I feel saddened by this a bit as well. It will not be even close to coming onto the market or even doing human trials before my father passes. I hope that they are able to really find a cure for this either way though. Thank you for sharing.