On 9 November, Kyoto University Hospital held a press conference on an investigator-initiated clinical trial for a Parkinson's disease therapy that began on 1 August. This world-first therapy involves implanting dopaminergic progenitors derived from human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into the patient's brain.
The operation was performed in October 2018 by a team led by the hospital’s neurosurgeons, who implanted 2.4 million dopamine precursor cells into the subject's left putamen. The entire procedure took three hours and one minute to complete.
The principal investigator, Professor Ryosuke Takahashi, director of the hospital's Department of Neurology, provided an overview of the trial, and described the patient as "doing well". Professor Jun Takahashi of the Center for iPS Research and Application (CiRA) and Assistant Professor Takayuki Kikuchi of the hospital's Department of Neurosurgery, who were in charge of cell preparation and transplantation, respectively, then discussed details of the tasks they handled.
From left: Assistant Professor Kikuchi, Director Ryosuke Takahashi, and Professor Jun Takahashi
