Nanostructures used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease to stimulate stem cell growth.

23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have developed a nanostructure that stimulates neural stem cells to differentiate into nerve cells.
they found that transplanting these nerve cells into rats with Parkinson's disease gradually improved the symptoms of the mice as new cells replaced the damaged nerve cells around the transplant site.
this new invention offers promising insights into stem cell therapy and new treatments for Parkinson's disease.
use stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases.
it is usually diagnosed in people over 60.
it originated from the degeneration of dopamine-enabled neurons in black matter.
black matter is a complex and critical area of the brain that can be damaged by impaired body movements, problems with the body's motor system, and common symptoms including tremors and difficulty walking.
Photo Source: Hong Kong Baptist University, while current treatments do not completely cure Parkinson's disease, stem cell therapy is one of the most promising.
it involves growing stem cells to differentiate into new healthy cells, tissues or organs that can then be transplanted into the human body to replace damaged or dead cells.
traditional stem cell culture techniques require the addition of a large number of growth factors to the medium. The chemicals used in
may stimulate the growth of cancer cells and increase the risk of tumors after transplanting into the body.
in addition, the brain-like structures obtained in this way are often less similar to similar structures in the brain.
the breeding cycle of traditional farming techniques is more than one month, the breeding efficiency is low, the risk of pollution is high.
nanomatrix, developed in collaboration with a team led by Professor Ken Yung Kin-lam of the Department of Biology and Associate Professor Jeffery Huang Zhifeng of the Department of Physics, can induce rapid and specific neural stem cells to differentiate into mini-SNLS.
these mini-SNLSs are mainly composed of dopamine-energy neurons, which can replace cells with impaired or degraded black matter in the brain.
nanomatrix consists of silicon dioxide plates coated with nanostructure layers.
nanomatrix is only 550 to 730 nanometers thick, but its surface has trillions of nano-shaped structures that can initiate the growth of neural stem cells to mini-SNLSs without the use of chemical growth factors.
when neural stem cells physically make physical contact with their custom nano-glyph matrix in vitro, 'physical massage' induces cells to rapidly differentiate into the required dopamine neurons.
a self-organized cerebellum-like structure can be developed in as little as two weeks, reducing the risk of cancer.
encouraging results on the rat model, the team conducted further laboratory experiments with mini-SNLSs on the rat model.
they transplanted mini-SNLSs cultured from nano-glyph media into the brains of Parkinson's rats, which exhibit severe motor asymmetry and rotation, a major symptom of Parkinson's disease.
starting at the 8th week after the transplant, the rotational function of all rats improved and gradually decreased.
at the 18th week, dopamine-enabled neurons are visible and are widely distributed at the primary site of the transplant.
, no tumor-like characteristics were found.
by contrast, the mice in the control group that did not have a transplant showed no signs of improvement.
photo source: The differentiation of other functional cells at Hong Kong Baptist University showed that these micro-brain-like structures showed good viability and function in the brains of rats and led to early and progressive improvements in Parkinson's disease in rats.
it laid the groundwork for stem cell therapy, which could eventually cure Parkinson's disease.
by changing the hardness, density and arrangement of nanoglyphs, or the shape of the matrix layer, neural stem cells can differentiate into different ideal functional cells.
the invention has shown great potential for treating other incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer's and certain types of cancer.
the findings were published in the academic journal Advanced Science.
research team has obtained a U.S. patent for the nano-glyph matrix.
():A nanostructure that stimulates growth of stem cells for Parkinson's disease treatmentHKBU scholars invent medical device for safe growth of neural stem cellsExtracellular Nanomatrix‐Induced Self‐Organization of Neural Stem Cells into Miniature Substantia Nigra‐Like Structures with Therapeutic Effects on Parkinsonian Rats。