Imagine the day when people who have suffered a traumatic injury which today would cause permanent paralysis could have those injuries repaired by a simple procedure. That day has been imagined by many who have been advocating the use of embryonic stem cells for research to take us to that day. The argument that most of us have made is that there has been no significant studies that show adult stem cells would be any less affective.

But imagine if that day came and stem cells weren’t the reason for it. Imagine that in one part of your own body there was a source for regenerating cells that could be harmlessly harvested and implanted in the damaged area. Those cells would grow and regenerate and form a bridge over the damaged nerve tissue and allow feeling and possibly motor control to return for the patient.

In 1985, neuroscientist Professor Geoffrey Raisman discovered that cells from the lining of the nose constantly regenerate themselves. He has been doing research using these cells for the last 20 years in search of a way to use them as a treatment to repair these very injuries. He has had success with laboratory animals. Paralyzed lab rats were treated with these cells which “… mend the break in the pathway that nerve fibres need to take if they are to rejoin. When a nerve is severed, it tries to regrow, but the pathway has been disrupted. The transplanted cells have the capacity to integrate with the pathway cells, laying a “bridge” across the gap and enabling the nerve fibres to reconnect. The transplants enabled animals that had been paralysed to reach with a paw and to climb. They also restored the ability to breathe.”

The Professor and his team have been given permission to conduct 2 human trials. The humans selected for the trials will have the same injuries to the same area of the body in order to verify results. If successful, this may open up the use of nose lining cells to repair other damaged parts of the human body.

The donor, would be the patient him/herself so there would be no rejection. So imagine the day.

“This is not the most popular way of attempting to heal spinal injuries. That would be to produce patented chemicals, which drug companies can make and sell. What we’re proposing could be carried out by any very modestly equipped hospital with neurosurgery. There are no patents. It makes it a very unpopular form of research,”said Raisman.

“We’re producing a procedure where the patient is their own cure. You can’t patent a patient’s own cells, thank God.”

“I don’t know that it will work, but I think it will work,” Prof Raisman said. “If you forced me to bet, I would bet on it working.”

This would be the biggest advancement to medical science since the discovery of penicillin. And the best part, it doesn’t depend upon the death of another life. The stem cell community are probably worried that their grant monies are going to dry up.

Source

H/T The Drudge Report

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Said Gribbit @ 12:29 am | Permalink   

1. Wonderful news, Gribbit! I’ve blogged on this olfactory ensheathing cell research before, but clinical trials weren’t yet in the cards.

   Perhaps success here, if it comes, will start getting the embryonic stem cell die-hards to rethink their blind adherence to that questionable (at best) research avenue.

   Comment by The MaryHunter — 11/30/2005 @ 7:01 am

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2. I just read today, in my dentist’s newsletter, that extracted baby teeth may contain special cells which could be useful in the same way.

   Comment by Always On Watch — 11/30/2005 @ 10:11 pm

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3. Finally something that may finally prove that the ridiculous idea of ening a life to save a life in just people way of is just a way to make them feel better about themselves.

   Comment by Joe Gilbreath — 12/1/2005 @ 11:49 pm

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4. Adult Stem Cell Progress in Spinal Cord Repair

   Maybe we will reach a state in the research debate at which scientists finally admit that their hopes and dreams for curing serious diseases might not, after all, depend on the killing of human embryos.

   …

   Trackback by TMH's Bacon Bits — 12/2/2005 @ 6:45 am

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