USF's Paul Sanberg is a pilot, dive master and guitarist. But his passion is his acclaimed research on diseases affecting the brain such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and stroke.

By JAY CRIDLIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 11, 2002

Drugs. Nicotine. Airplanes. Guitars. Tourette's syndrome.

All could be chapter titles in a rock star's memoir. But they also describe the life of Paul Sanberg, one of the University of South Florida's top researchers.

Sanberg, the director of USF's center for aging and brain repair, is internationally acclaimed for his research on diseases that affect the brain, such as Huntington's and Parkinson's.

Among his findings: Stem cells from umbilical cord blood may speed the recovery of stroke victims, and nicotine may be an effective treatment against Tourette's syndrome.

Sanberg would be at home flying an airplane or playing his guitar. But in a recent interview with Times staff writer Jay Cridlin, he focused on the medical breakthroughs he's overseeing at USF. Here are excerpts:

* * *

Explain how nicotine can be good for you.

Nicotine is one of the oldest drugs that people have used throughout history. It has behavioral effects, but it also has effects on the brain. So the concept is: Can we look at nicotine per se as a drug away from tobacco, and can we use that to see whether we can help in a number of disorders?

And what we've found is that it could help Tourette's syndrome, kids with tics. So we ended up giving kids the nicotine patch, and found that it had some positive effects in kids. We didn't see any addiction issues related to the patch.

* * *

You're not suggesting Tourette's syndrome patients go out and buy a pack of Kools.

No, no, no. You get that all the time, where people say, "Should they go smoke cigarettes?" No, that's not the case at all.

* * *

Last year you presented a speech titled "Brain Repair: From Fiction to Science." Can you tell me about the title?

When I give my talk, one of my main areas that I love is: "Can we put new cells in the body, in the brain?" Much of disease is associated with cell death. We lose cells in the brain, we lose cells in the body -- diabetes, for example. The real next focus of medicine will be cell therapy or regenerative medicine.

This field is not new, although it seems new. It's been around for as long as the idea of replacing body parts -- like Shelley, for example, with Frankenstein. There's actually publications of over 100 years ago, scientific publications, where people tried to put, for example, cat brain tissue into a dog. It was published in the New York Medical Journal.

It really hasn't been until the last 20 years or so that we've really understood that cells can survive in the brain. So that's kind of where I go from the fiction to what is fact.

* * *

Tell me about the relationship between one's brain and one's testicles, keeping in mind that this is a family newspaper.

When we talk about cell therapy, it's not just stem cells. It's other types of cells. People are looking for all sorts of types of cells to put in the brain to try to regrow things. One thing we looked at was what we called Sertoli cells, and these are cells from the testicles. They provide all of the growth, support and the nutrients for sperm to develop. Without Sertoli cells, there would be no sperm, there would be no human life or animal life in this world.

When I came here, I said, "Why couldn't we use the Sertoli cell, put them in the brain, and provide a localized protection so we could put animal cells in the human brain, and get them to survive without any antirejection drugs?" In fact, we could enhance brain repair in some animal models by putting Sertoli cells, these testicle cells, into the brain of Parkinson's rats, for example.

And because they were published in some high-profile journals, they got some press, and of course because they're from testicle cells, they got a lot of PR.

* * *

Where do you stand on the stem cell debate?

I stand on the stem cell debate in the middle. And it's not that I'm trying to be nonpolitical here. Most of my research focuses on adult stem cells or postbirth stem cells, and I think ethically and logistically, it's a great approach. I guess I would lean more to that side, because if adult stem cells or umbilical cord-derived stem cells or other type of stem cells from postbirth show to be as useful as embryonic stem cells, then I would encourage that.

Researchwise, though, I think the stem cell field is so young. Cancer researchers have dealt with stem cells for quite a while, but neuroscientists have only started dealing with this in the past five to 10 years. We need to explore all avenues of research, because what we'll learn in embryonic stem cells, we can translate to adult stem cells, and vice versa. By inhibiting one, I think we will really hinder further research.

* * *

Say you have five minutes, one on one, with George Bush. What do you say to him on this issue?

I would say that I thought that his compromise of allowing certain embryonic stem cells to pursue was a good idea, that clearly there are some logistical issues now with people getting those stem cells, and so there should be more money put into that. But on the other hand, I think that he should put more federal funding into adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood stem cells, as he mentioned on TV. There should be a real push into these areas.

* * *

I'll list some diseases or afflictions, and you tell me briefly how close you believe we are to a cure. Tourette's syndrome.

We're starting to understand the pharmacology to treat these kids better. Some kids are helped a lot, and some kids still aren't. Psychiatric disorders are very complex, and to say that you could really cure one aspect, one disorder, is very difficult. But to cure some, or to help some, yes.

* * *

Parkinson's.

I think we're getting close, but we're not as close as we thought we would be. We thought 10 years ago that we might have a cure in 10 years. When Michael J. Fox hits 50, he wants to have a cure. That's his goal. I think what's really hindering things right now is translating to the clinic. And that requires biotechnology funding from the private sector. So it might be there in another five to 10 years. It might be before Michael J. Fox is 50.

* * *

Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's is a difficult disease. It's one that clearly personally affects everybody. It needs a lot of research. A lot of people think they have the potential cures for Alzheimer's, but it hasn't been there yet. There are drugs out there, but they might slow the progression a year or two. Someone may find a specific cure, but it looks like it's going to be an evolving treatment over the next 10 to 20 years.

* * *

Spinal cord injuries.

I'm getting more encouraged by research in spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. There's some significant research out there showing, at least in animals, that they can really provide some recovery. And again, what's needed is to start translating these into humans. I think that Christopher Reeve's recent positive effects show that intense physical therapy can get some regeneration on its own. We're getting there.

* * *

Mental illnesses like schizophrenia or depression.

There are a number of psychiatric drugs out there. There's been a real growth of psychiatric drugs since I've studied this field. New drugs that come along constantly. And there are better drugs with less side effects in the pipeline.

Some people are helped by some drugs, and some people are not helped by some drugs. Everyone's an individual, and everyone has individual brain chemistry. That might be a future of medicine, in many ways, too, for a lot of diseases, this whole "individual medicine," where we know what the person's abnormal genes are and we can design drugs specifically for them. That's another thing that's really being pushed in this century.

* * *

Stroke victims.

Stroke, clearly, is an area that I care about. It's such a devastating disorder. It's really a brain attack, just like a heart attack. We're interested in stem cells for a stroke. People are reporting very positive results. If they can get it to the clinic, it might be within five or 10 years. We have a stroke initiative here at USF to help this, because it is so related to the aging population that Florida has.

* * *

What about the common cold?

I've just had one for the last seven days. I was hoping I could suck on zinc and get rid of it. So I don't know.

* * *

Do you have to be a creative person to succeed in medicine or research?

It's a question I've thought about since I was an undergraduate, really. I used to talk about inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. A scientist can really think deductively. You start with this experiment, and you can lay out exactly what you're going to do if this experiment turns this way and this way and this way. You don't have to be very creative.

But it's the transitionals that create a part where you're making some thought out of hearing something over here in left field and something over in right field. You put it together, and you make some novel idea. That creative spark is very important in science, and one that we need to help nurture in students.

* * *

As you yourself become older, do you feel more of a connection to the research that you're doing, a more personal connection?

I've always felt connected to the research. I've always done research that connected me somehow. Not that I have the diseases per se, but I moved into stroke research when my father got a stroke, and I really pushed for that. When you see certain patients and they ask you to help, you tend to move into that area. The real question mark, of course, is funding.

* * *

Why do you do what you do?

I enjoy it. If I didn't enjoy it, there's other things that I could be doing right now. I'm a flight instructor and I'd love to spend more time doing that. I'm a dive master. I'd love to go scuba diving. But I haven't been able to do that. This still draws me. There are so many ways in which we can still develop these therapies and help people. There's just so much illness out there.

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