Eshan Maitra
Mark Tuszynski from the University of California, San Diego proudly announced on behalf of his team that, they have been successful in regenerating damaged spinal cords in rats. This revolutionary process has eradicated the past beliefs that neurons cannot undergo stem cell culturing process.
They used neural progenitor cells both from the rats and humans to study on a group of rats with damaged spinal cord. Progenitor cells are dynamic cells that can produce different types of cells in the nervous system. The researchers injected the processed cells into the corticospinal axons (The most important motor system of mammals, such as humans and rats etc.) of the rats’ damaged spinal cord. Firstly, the stem cells took root into the cord and then repaired it. It even healed paralyzed cords in specific cases. This disproved the past theories that corticospinal neurons lack the internal mechanisms to be used in the stem cells’ regeneration process. The process of the discovery was tremendously difficult and they had to go through many test.
This is a fascinating news in the field of Bio-Medical and Engineering. So far they have only been able to culture fleshy tissues from stem cells, recently a human heart was cultured as well. But now they are going into developing the process of regenerating the bones and neurons. Though the researchers’ team was unable to regenerate neurons of the spinal cord, that only set aims for the near future researchers to find the way of installing human spinal cords. Still, the new found methods can be used after further developing to cure paralysis and other spinal cord injuries of humans. Though more extensive testing is required adapt the full extent of the procedure. Also to ensure the long-term safety and reliability. Now, their very next endeavor is to find the best type of human neural stem cell to use.