Parkinson’s and Huntington’s Disease are progressive neurodegenerative diseases for which there are currently no cures.  This study will investigate potential cell replacement therapies to treat both diseases.  They are both candidates for respective cell therapies because they involve the selective loss of the specific cell types, neurones, at defined sites in the brain.

To date worldwide, a very small number of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s patients have been treated in clinical trials by transplanting neural cells into the brain at the sites of degeneration.  Outcomes have been promising, but due to the difficulties in obtaining enough cells for transplant the therapy would be limited to only a handful of patients.

The aim of this study is to develop cell culture methods to increase the number of neural cells available for transplant and initiate pilot studies to treat patients with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s Disease.

The cornea is the outer surface of the eye.  Stem cells in the cornea, called limbal cells, would normally maintain the cornea in a healthy eye, but disease or injury can damage the cornea and result in a loss of these stem cells, which can lead to blindness.

Treatments for limbal stem cell deficiency include corneal transplantation and limbal tissue grafts, but both have severe limitations.

The aim of this project is to harvest limbal stem cells from donated corneas, grow sheets of limbal cells in culture and then transplant these onto the damaged eye and restore sight.

Hip replacement surgery is needed when the hip joint has been badly damaged by arthritis, malformation of the hip since or from injury.  Hip replacements normally last for up to 15 years before they deteriorate and loosen and then need to be replaced.  The need for second hip replacements (hip revision surgery) are increasing due to demographic and lifestyle changes in the population.  Revision surgery is generally less successful because the bone into which the prosthesis is fixed has degraded, leading to the collapse of the implant.

This aim of this study is to determine whether the inclusion of the patient’s stem cells, derived from bone marrow, in the graft structure will improve implant fixation and lead to bone regeneration.   The current project will carry out the essential validation of the method for culturing the stem cells to allow maximum bone differentiation before designing a full-scale clinical trial.

Injuries to the brain and spinal cord have their effects due to disconnection of nerve fibres.  These effects are permanent because the severed nerve fibres are unable to re-connect.  This failure to reconnect is not because of an intrinsic inability of severed nerves to grow, but due to the loss of a permissive pathway along which they can grow.

The sensory system used for smell (olfactory system), is the only part of the nervous system that continually regenerates throughout adult life.  A unique type of cell, the olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) found in the nasal passage, provides the natural pathway for growth of olfactory nerve fibres into the brain.

The aim of this study is to determine whether transplanting the patient’s own OECs into the site of injury will result in nerve repair.  The first part of the study will be essential safety and efficacy studies before carrying out a clinical trial.  Success will lead to treatment of conditions, which are currently incurable and blight the lives of not only the injured people but also those involved in caring for them.