SYDNEY: Australian researchers have created a hydrogel that could be used as a one-off intervention to treat Parkinson's disease and possibly other neurological conditions, a member of the development team said in an interview with Reuters.
When shaken, the hydrogel transforms into a liquid, making it easier to be inserted into the brain through a small capillary. The gel then reverts to its solid form, filling up irregularly shaped voids and helping to safely transport replacement stem cells to injured parts of the brain. "Foreseeably, a patient would come to the hospital presenting with Parkinson's disease and they would just need this sort of one intervention to potentially alleviate many of their symptoms for years to come," he said.
Nisbet added the hydrogel was also relatively cheap to produce and could be scaled up to mass production relatively easily once the materials were approved for clinical use.