Therapeutic potential of fetal neural grafts in neurodegenerative diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases are a major public health problem since they aff ect as a mean 1 % of the people in industrialized countries and will progre ss along with the ageing of the population. For ten years, a major research endeavour aims at developing new therapeutics against these diseases. Thes e new approaches are based either on the substitution of affected neurons b y homogous neuroblasts that are able to replace them anatomically and funct ionally (fetal neural grafts), or on the we of neuroprotective proteins (by gene therapy) that are able to promote natural defenses of neural cells. C linical results have been obtained with fetal neural transplants over the p ast decade, in patients with Parkinson's and more recently, Huntington's di sease. The neuroprotective approach is under evaluation.