Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover Means of Treating Parkinson’s Patients with New and Previously Failed Drugs

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, along with colleagues nationwide, report that they have used adult stem cells to generate the type of human neuron specifically damaged by Parkinson’s disease (PD) and used various drugs to stop the damage. Their experiments on cells in the laboratory, reported in the July 4 issue of Science Translational Medicine, could speed up the search for new drugs to treat the incurable neurodegenerative disease; their research also may lead them back to better ways of using medications that failed in previous clinical trials.

“Our study suggests that some failed drugs should actually work if they were used earlier, and especially if we could diagnose PD before tremors and other symptoms first appear,” says one of the study’s leaders, Ted M. Dawson, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. For more information, click here to read the full release.