[Japan’s first use of iPS cells to treat Parkinson’s disease] November 5th, Japan’s Sumitomo Pharmaceutical Company recently announced that a patient has undergone surgery to treat Parkinson’s disease using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) at Kyoto University Hospital. This is the first clinical application of this therapy after receiving conditional approval in Japan. The therapy, called Amchepry, involves cultivating iPS cells from healthy donors into dopaminergic neural precursor cells, which are then transplanted into the patient's brain through neurosurgery to compensate for the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare granted conditional, time-limited approval to the therapy in March this year.