One promising approach for the treatment of PD is cellular brain repair whereby the cells that have died in the condition are replaced by transplantation of healthy cells into the brain. However, this approach has faced several limitations including poor survival of the transplanted cells in the PD brain. To address this limitation, we have recently shown that biomaterials - that is, materials that have been specifically engineered to interact with living systems for therapeutic purposes – have the potential to dramatically improve cellular brain repair for PD. Specifically, when the brain cells were encapsulated in a growth factor enriched biomaterial before transplantation into the (rat) PD brain, the survival of the cells was dramatically improved, and this enhanced brain repair and recovery of movement control. The aim of this project is to continue and extend these previous findings, and to determine if growth factor enriched biomaterials can also improve cellular brain repair for PD.