Parkinson's Disease is a degenrative disease caused by loss of dopamine-producing cells in the substantia nigra. So replacement of the cell that are capable of producing dopamine remains a possible treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The best way to achieve this is through neural transplantation. One of the forms of neural transplantation, include stem cell transplants.

Stem cells have two important characteristics that distinguish them from other types of cells. First, they are unspecialized cells that renew themselves for long periods through cell division. The second is that under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, they can be induced to become cells with special functions such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

Stem cells can be of two types Embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells(ESC) represent the classic manifestation of a stem cell population, showing great capacity of self-renewal and differentiation. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. However, in recent years a large body of evidence indicated that some subpopulations of adult stem cells are capable of differentiating into mature cells different from their original lineage, a phenomenon termed transdifferentiation. These multipotent adult stem cells reside in various compartments in the mature organism and display plasticity initially thought to belong exclusively to ESCs. Those cells have been isolated from brain, bone marrow, skin, fat, skeletal muscle and other visceral organs.

Adult stem cells appear to be the ideal candidates to serve as the cellular reservoir. In comparison to embryonic stem cells, adult stem cell harvesting does not involve the controversial use of embryos or eggs. They will optimally be transplanted autologously, decreasing to a minimum the risk of immune rejection and, because of their more restricted differentiation potential, are considered less prone to form tumors in the host.

Current therapies in parkinson’s disease are mostly symptomatic. The tireless efforts being invested in developing new technologies in stem cell research will hopefully yield the knowledge that will enable doctors to present patients with a cure.