Anders Bjorklund
Professor Anders Björklund, Lund University, Sweden
Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson's Disease: Current status and future perspectives
17:10 - 18:10, Monday 15th April - The CCD Auditorium
Anders Björklund is a founder of the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center, elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and professor and head of the neurobiology unit at Lund University in Lund, Sweden.
Anders was at the forefront of changing what was, until relatively recently, the accepted view that the adult brain was fixed and that nerve cells could not recover following injury.
This radical hypothesis opened a whole new field of research in neuroscience, and hope to thousands of people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.
His work provided evidence that immature neurons could be inserted into the brain and help regenerate damaged areas. On the basis of studies showing that dopamine neurons transplanted into rats could relieve Parkinsonian symptoms, Björklund and colleagues carried out the first clinical trials in Parkinson patients. These confirmed that dopamine neuroblasts, implanted into the striatum, can survive, integrate, and function for years in the diseased brain.
Current research at Lund is now exploring the use of customized stem cells to treat Parkinson disease.