Hong Kong biotech start-up claims world first in stem cell treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases

Oper Technology, a Hong Kong biotechnology start-up, has pioneered what it claims is a world first in stem cell treatment that it says could potentially help millions of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

The business was co-founded by Hong Kong Baptist University’s Professor Ken Yung, who specialises in neurobiology and neurological diseases in the university’s biology department.

He and his team has now developed a method of harvesting neural stem cells from the brains of live subjects using specially developed nanoparticles.

The exploration of using stem cells to repair damaged neural cells is not a new concept. Scientists in the US and elsewhere have experimented using stem cells from fat and skin, developing them into neural cells.

But Yung claims his team is the first to successfully harvest stem cells directly from the brain and re-inject the developed neural cells back into a live subject, thereby artificially regenerating any cells which have died off, due to neurological diseases from neural stem cells themselves.

Stem cells have the potential to develop into different types of cells with specialised functions.