Grant: Operating Grant

The present submission for a Phase I/II of the clinical trial is to permit us to investigate whether the transplantation of normal myoblasts throughout one muscle (the extensor carpi radialis longus) of the patients will permit to increase the strength of that muscle. During this Phase I/II, the patients will be transplanted with myoblasts grown from the muscle biopsy of the donor and kept frozen in liquid nitrogen. Thirty million myoblasts will be injected per cm3 in a progressively higher surface of the radialis (i.e., 3, 7 and 10 cm2). The contralateral muscle will be injected with saline to serve as a negative control. The strength of both muscles will be measured at 3 months to verify whether the myoblast transplantation increase the strength of the muscle. If there is no significant strength increase the protocol will be terminated immediately for that patient. If there is a significant strength increase, the patient will be maintained under immunosuppression until 6 months and his strength will be re-evaluated.