At 63, real estate icon Kevin Weeks was the picture of good health. He exercised regularly, ate healthy, and didn’t smoke. But, following a week-long cycling tour through the French and Swiss Alps, he returned to his native Australia to attend a friend’s birthday and was greeted by a tidal wave of symptoms synonymous with Parkinson’s disease.
Kevin speculated something was wrong after his hands started to pulsate on the steering wheel while driving to work one morning. And on October 24, 2013, his suspicions were confirmed by a neurologist - the unwelcome diagnosis was early onset Parkinson’s disease.
For anyone whose hobbies include athletics, it may feel as though there are few fates worse than Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects predominately dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. Unlike other ailments, Parkinson’s disease doesn’t move in a straight line, making it difficult to pin point exactly how the disease will progress. And it doesn’t discriminate, affecting roughly 7 million to 10 million people worldwide, including high-profile celebrities like Michael J. Fox and the late Muhammad Ali.
But, for Kevin, receiving the news didn’t dissuade him from exploring out-of-the-box treatment options. In December 2016, Kevin became one of the first people in the world to undergo experimental brain surgery involving the injection of neural stem cells, an unprecedented technology developed by the International Stem Cell Corporation (ISCO), Lifeline Skin Care’s parent company. The procedure, successfully administered by the team of the Royal Melbourne Hospital neurosurgeons, involved implanting more than 30 million neural stem cells into 14 different locations in the brain. Those stem cells, in turn, replaced the dopamine-producing neurons that were no longer efficient.
Unlike its competitors, ISCO remains on the cusp of innovation as the only company to conduct clinical trials without using embryonic cells, with Kevin’s being a success story that continues to unfold. ISCO’s powerful new stem cell technology promises to significantly advance the field of regenerative medicine. “Our team is working tirelessly to bring the stem cell therapy through clinical trials to improve the quality of life of the millions of patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. We will publish the results of our clinical trials and make them available to the public as soon as possible,” commented Russell Kern, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of ISCO.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff at +1-760-940-6383 or ir@intlstemcell.com. Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT02452723