Biomaterial-based delivery of neurotrophic factors to the Parkinsonian brain (360G-Wellcome-211472_Z_18_Z)

The concept of cellular brain repair for Parkinson's disease is relatively simple - if brain cells die in this condition, then it should be possible to replace these cells through transplantation of healthy cells back into the brain. Over the past three decades, numerous animal studies and several clinical trials in human patients have shown that this concept has significant potential for repairing the brain affected by Parkinson's disease. However, poor survival of the healthy cells has limited the widespread roll-out of this cellular reparative approach to patients. Biomaterials, that is, materials that have been engineered to interact safety with living tissue for therapeutic purposes, have the potential to improve such cellular reparative therapies for Parkinson's disease. Specifically, injectable biomaterials gels have the potential to significantly improve cell survival by providing a physical scaffold and pro-survival environment for the implanted cells. Thus the aim of this proposal is to determine if biomaterial hydrogels can be used to improve cellular reparative therapies for Parkinson’s disease using animal models of the condition. We will specifically investigate the beneficial effect of biomaterials on stem cell-derived neuron cell transplantation approaches.