LONDON -- Research offering the first real hope of a future cure for alzheimer's disease is to be published today (Monday), showing how scientists in the United States and Britain managed to start the regrowth of damaged cells in the brains of mice.

One woman has undergone similar treatment in California, reportedly with some success, and researchers there hope to try a handful of human volunteers. But because of the nature of the operation and the unquantifiable long term effects, scientists are proceeding slowly.

The treatment involves a protein called nerve growth factor made by genetically modifying skin cells taken from the patient. Cells containing the protein are released into the brain through holes drilled in the skull.

Similar operations to implant foetal cells in the brains of parkinson's sufferers received a setback recently, when a study in the us found the recipients suffered side effects because the embryonic cells were growing and dividing out of control.

There is, however, a difference between the two techniques, according to an alzheimer's research specialist, Richard Harvey" in the parkinson's transplants, scientists were trying to replace cells that were damaged. the skin cells in the alzheimer transplants are just a vehicle -- a delivery system for the nerve growth factor."

The work on mice, carried out partly at King's College in London, will be published today (Monday) in the ***American Journal*** proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists. It shows that nerve growth factor can cause mice brain cells to regenerate. The factor is present in the developing brain of an embryo, but stops being made a short time after birth.

The breakthrough came earlier this year when the national institutes of health reported a way to genetically modify skin cells to produce the factor. These cells, implanted in a mouse brain, not only prevented the deterioration caused by alzheimer's, but also reversed it.

One problem is the difficulty in implanting in the correct part of the brain -- the base of the frontal lobe. Scientists must also be sure there are no unwanted side effects, before larger human trials. it is likely to be more than a decade before any operation could become widely available. (Guardian News Service).