Ray of Hope for Spinal Cord Patients - The researcher who found a way to get paralyzed rats back walking is now in Colorado and predicts huge breakthroughs in treatment of human spinal cord injuries in half a decade. "We've reached a stage where I'm comfortable saying that within the next five years, we will have truly effective new therapies from people with spinal cord injuries," Dr. Stephen Davies said this week. Talent scouts last year persuaded Dr. Stephen Davies to leave his neurology lab at the Baylor School of Medicine in Texas for the new Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, part of the University of Colorado's Health Sciences Center. Davies brought with him his methods of regenerating damaged spinal cords by suppressing scar tissue and by injecting special cells into the injury. The two-pronged attack is being used on rats right now, but he predicts there will be human trials within four or five years. March 2008.

 

 

Spinal Injury Regeneration Hope; Scientists believe they are close to a significant breakthrough in the treatment of spinal injuries - The University of Cambridge team is developing a treatment which could potentially allow damaged nerve fibres to regenerate within the spinal cord. It may also encourage the remaining undamaged nerve fibres to work more effectively. The Cambridge team has identified a bacteria enzyme called chondroitinase which is capable of digesting molecules within scar tissue to allow some nerve fibres to regrow. The enzyme also promotes nerve plasticity, which potentially means that remaining undamaged nerve fibres have an increased likelihood of making new connections that could bypass the area of damage. February  2008.

 

 

Scientists Make Breakthrough in Spinal Injury Treatment - American scientists have said they have succeeded in using a bypass technique to restore movement in paralyzed rats. Using similar technique used in heart bypass surgery, scientists at Columbia University in NY have shown that nerves can also be used to circumvent spinal damage and reconnect the brain to the body. The pioneering technique, successfully used in experiments with rats, raises the prospect of the first human trials within five years, which could help thousands of people regain feeling, the scientists said. In experiments on rats with spinal injuries, the scientists under the leadership of John Martin, a neuroscientist at Columbia University, cut away a nerve from just above the injury that normally stretches into the body to control abdominal muscles and reattached it to the spine below the injury. The rats went on to show an increase in movements of previously paralyzed limbs. The nerves, which control movement, were able to regenerate effectively within the spinal cord. February 2008.
 

 

Study Holds New Promise For Patients Recovering From Spinal Injuries - Spinal cord damage blocks the routes the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. For years, doctors believed that the only way injured patients could walk again was to regrow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. Now, for the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. January 2008.

 

 

Scientists Turn Human Skin Cells Into Stem Cells; The new cells are almost identical to embryonic stem cells, experts say - Two separate groups of scientists have succeeded in turning human skin cells into cells that are very similar -- but not identical -- to embryonic stem cells. "Embryonic stem cells can divide forever, and there has never been good evidence for such cells in adults, but this new paper shows a method to make cells essentially identical to embryonic stem cells," said James Thomson, senior author of the Wisconsin study and a professor in the departments of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "This will change the ethical debate," he said at a teleconference held Tuesday. November 2007.

 

 

Spinal Cord Research Shows Promise - Montreal researchers have identified what may be a pivotal first step toward regenerating injured spinal cords using the body's own stem cells. The repair mechanism that works well in a developing or embryonic nervous system seems to work in reverse in adults following injury, explained neuroscientist Tim Kennedy of the Montreal Neurological Institute. That mechanism involves a protein called Netrin-1 that acts like a guidance cue for directing embryonic cells and helping the arm-like extension of cells, called the axon, grow in the right direction. November 2007.

 

 

Experimental Therapy May Ease Spinal Cord Injury - An experimental body cooling treatment used on an injured National Football League player offers promise for preventing paralysis in people who sustain severe spinal cord injuries, experts said on Thursday. But the value of "modest hypothermia," the treatment used on Kevin Everett of the Buffalo Bills after he was injured in a game on Sunday, remains controversial among some doctors who want to see more evidence it helps those patients. The idea behind the treatment is to lower the body temperature -- but not by too much in order to avoid other complications -- to restrict damage to the spinal cord. November 2007.

 

 

Clinical Trial Suggests Bone Marrow Stem Cells Are Useful for Spinal Cord Injury; PrimeCell Therapeutics Provided Pre-Clinical Study - PrimeCell(TM) Therapeutics LLC http://www.primecelltherapeutics.com) today announced that it provided research support and pre-clinical studies for a clinical trial to assess the safety, feasibility and efficacy of implanting autologous bone marrow stem cells into spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Dr. Luis Geffner presented a preliminary report at the 13th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Cellular Therapy, held here June 24-27. From May 2006 to January 2007, 25 patients with SCI were treated at Luis Vernaza Hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. They were treated with autologous bone marrow stem cells - meaning the cells were extracted from the patients' own bone marrow. Fifteen patients (60 percent) could stand up, ten patients (40 percent) could walk on the parallels with braces, seven (28 percent) could walk without braces, and four (16 percent) could walk with crutches. Patients demonstrated improvements in sensitivity, motility, bladder sensation, even controlling sphincters, erection and ejaculation. No adverse event was observed. July 2007.

 

 

Hospital Tests New Surgery; Procedure Could Improve Bladder Control - Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak this week began a pilot study, under the watchful eye of the Chinese surgeon who developed the operation, that could help millions of Americans regain bladder control after spinal cord injuries and spina bifida, one of the most common and disabling birth defects. The surgery creates a neural connection that signals the bladder to empty when a person touches the thigh. Doctors make about a four-inch incision near the lower part of the spine and open the dura, the protective sheath around the spinal cord, exposing the network of nerve roots that feed it. They find what they call a donor nerve in the leg, and measure its nerve conductivity with electrical tests. The nerve then is split, with a portion still attached to the spinal cord, and routed to the bladder. There, another so-called recipient nerve from the spinal cord is spliced, again leaving a portion attached to the spinal cord, and the two ends are sewn together with a single stitch. It creates a new circuit that bypasses the brain, Peters said. "You are rerouting the nerve, using the nerve that moves the leg to feed nerves to the bladder." May 2007.

 

 

Drug Shows Promise in Spinal Cord Injury Treatment: Cethrin Inhibited Cell Death, Promoted Neural R, Study Finds - A drug called Cethrin shows promise in treating people with spinal cord injury (SCI), according to a study by American and Canadian researchers. Cethrin inhibits Rho, a signaling master switch that, when activated, triggers cell death and increases damage after SCI. Tests in animals with SCI have found that Cethrin inhibits cell death and promotes neural regeneration. This one-year study looked at the use of Cethrin (a recombinant protein) formulated with a fibrin sealant in 37 patients who had just suffered an SCI that left them with no sensory or motor function below the area of the injury. After the patients had surgical decompression/reconstruction, the researchers started treatment with Cethrin, an average of 53 hours after the injury occurred. The patients were assessed at various points over a year. The study found that at six weeks, 30.6 percent of the patients improved by one or ASIA grades of injury. At six months, 28 percent of patients improved by one or more ASIA grades. Five patients improved to "C" and two improved to "D." One patient died from acute respiratory distress syndrome. May 2007.

 

 

Analysis: Stem Cells Closer to Trials - Despite the limitations on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, two companies recently said they are close to entering clinical trials with the versatile cells. Geron plans to file an investigational new drug application with the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year for using cells derived from embryonic stem cells for treating spinal injuries. Advanced Cell Technology, which previously said it planned to file an IND this year for using stem cell-derived therapies for treating macular degeneration, announced this week it has developed a technique to generate a type of progenitor cell that could move into the clinic in 2008 for treating a variety of ills. May 2007.

 

 

New SCI Therapy Option is Working - Cliff Crase is the editor and publisher of the Paraplegia News magazine, the monthly news and information magazine of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. In the magazine's March issue, he writes about a fairly new medical/therapy option that is now being used to help individuals with spinal cord injuries to recover a significant amount of movement and function in affected limbs. A number of national news media organizations have also featured recent reports on this newer procedure with the ABC network's "Good Morning America" and "Extreme Makeover, Home Edition" being two especially noteworthy examples. Each of these programs has aired stories about this new SCI-recovery situation. In the "Good Morning America" program, they featured a segment on locomotor treadmill training for people with SCI and highlighted a 3-year-old paralyzed Kentucky boy who was learning to walk again after working with this particular therapy, financed by the Christopher Reeve Foundation's Neuro-Recovery Network. Later that week, ABC's "Extreme Makeover" program saw a home renovated for a woman who sustained an SCI in her job as a Los Angeles policewoman. She is now making progress on her recovery with the help of ProjectWalk and a rehab center in San Diego. April 2007.

 

 

Scientists plan China, HK, Taiwan stem cell trial; Scientists plan China, HK, Taiwan stem cell trial -  Scientists are preparing for a large clinical trial in 2008 which aims to use stem cells to help 400 patients with spinal cord injuries in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan grow new cells and nerve fibers. Stem cells from umbilical cord blood will be injected into the spinal cords of the participants, who will also be given lithium to help stimulate cell regeneration, said Wise Young, a leading neuroscientist and spinal cord injury researcher. "What we'd like to do is study a broad range of patients, not just (those with) complete (spinal cord injuries)," said Young, professor at Rutgers' department of cellbiology and neuroscience. March 2007.

 

 

'Smart Bladder' Technology Could Help Paralyzed; Stimulating spinal cord can restore natural urination, animal study shows - Duke University researchers say they've moved a step closer in their efforts to develop a "smart bladder pacemaker" that could restore bladder control in people with spinal cord injury or neurological diseases. The latest finding of the project, which started in 2004, shows that electrical stimulation of the pelvic nerve in the spinal cord can control the contraction and relaxation of muscles involved in bladder control. In tests on cats, the researchers found that high frequency electrical pulses directed at the pelvic nerve helped empty the bladder, while low frequency pulses increased bladder capacity and improved continence. February 2007.

 

 

Iran Announces Innovative New Technique to Repair Spinal Cord Injuries - On Sunday, the Islamic Republic officially announced that Iranian scientists have developed a new technique for treating patients with spinal cord injuries. In this method of Schwann cell transplantation, the Schwann cells are taken from the back of the patient's leg (below the knee) and grown in the lab. They are then injected into the site of the injury. Researchers from the Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Center of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences have scientifically proven the efficacy of the new method through 30 operations on humans. "The degree of recovery is 85 percent in patients with partial paralysis, and 15 percent in patients with full paralysis," the director of the spinal cord injury research group, Hushang Saberi, said at the ceremony held to announce the Iranian scientists' achievement. February 2007.

 

 

Shingles Drug Reduces Spinal Cord Injury Pain; Patients often have few options to ease their discomfort, experts note - The drug pregabalin may help ease the pain of patients afflicted with spinal cord injury, Australian researchers report. Currently, pregabalin is used to treat two common types of nerve pain -- diabetic nerve pain and pain after shingles. The 12-week study, reported in the Nov. 28 Neurology, included 137 adult spinal cord injury patients with nerve pain. Half of them received pregabalin, and the other half received a placebo. At the end of the study, fewer than 16 percent of the patients taking pregabalin reported severe pain, compared to 43 percent of the patients taking the placebo. Patients taking the drug also had fewer sleep and anxiety problems than those taking the placebo. More than half (57 percent) of patients taking the drug said they felt better overall, compared to just 21 percent of those in the placebo group. January 2007.

 

 

New Drug Giving Hope to Spinal Cord Patients - A new medication being tested at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital gives hope to patients with severe spinal cord injuries. The drug Cethrin has been in safety trials, says Jefferson neurosurgeon James Harrop. Cethrin is a protein applied to a sheath covering the spinal cord. From there, it interrupts a peculiar reaction that follows a spinal injury, programmed cell death in which neurons give up the ghost. It also aids surviving nerve cells in reconnecting. Usually, someone with a complete spinal injury has a less than three percent chance of regaining any sensation past the site. With Cethrin, that went up to 31 percent: "The results are pretty encouraging because we're seeing that we might be able to intervene and treat a disease that, ten or fifteen years ago, was untreatable in many people's eyes." Dr. Harrop cautions, more studies are ahead, but so far, so good. December 2006.

 

 

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On; Body Vibration Therapy is Helping People with Spinal Cord Injuries Build Bone Density and Muscle Tone - The vibrations she experiences aren't the result of seismic shifting. They're part of a therapy called whole body vibration. The Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan is using it to help increase bone density, reduce spasms and build muscle tone in people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. The machines used in whole body vibration look somewhat like StairMasters -- with a large metal plate where the steps would be. You stand on the plate and select a frequency and a segment time; the plate vibrates, causing your muscles to contract. That's supposed to lead to better circulation, fewer spasms and increased bone density. Users can also do basic moves like calf raises, squats, push-ups or sit-ups to work different body parts. "For someone who can't make muscle contractions, this does the contractions for them," says Bill Thornton, the head physical trainer at the Rehabilitation Institute's Center for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery. October 2006.

 

 

Cyberkinetics Gets FDA Humanitarian OK For Spine Device - Foxborough's Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc. has received notification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that its product to treat spinal cord injuries has been designated as a humanitarian-use device. The designation will allow Cyberkinetics to file a Humanitarian Device Exemption application with the FDA for its Andara Oscillating Field Stimulator Device, which would be used immediately after (within 18 days) certain types of spinal cord injuries. September 2006.

 

 

Possible Brain Repair Protein Pinpointed -  New Tasmanian research has found a protein could hold the key to repairing damaged brain and spinal cord cells. Neuroscientist Tracey Dickson says the team has identified a particular protein, ERM, which is vital to both the growth and repair of damaged central nervous system cells. "We know that they are on in development and they are switched back on after trauma and perhaps that's a clue for a particular therapeutic intervention that we could follow up," she said. Researcher Matilda Haas says while the body switches on the protein after trauma, the damage is never fully repaired. "After they grow back a little bit, they'll be stunted and the neuron will probably degenerate," she said. August 2006.

 

 

Spinal Cord Bridge Bypasses Injury To Restore Mobility - The body's spinal cord is like a super highway of nerves. When an injury occurs, the body's policing defenses put up a roadblock in the form of a scar to prevent further injury, but it stops all neural traffic from moving forward. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Drexel University and the University of Arkansas bypassed this roadblock in the spinal cord. First, the researchers regenerated the severed nerve fibers, also called axons, around the initial large lesion with a segment of peripheral nerve taken from the leg of the same animal that suffered the spinal injury. Next, they jump started neural traffic by allowing many nerve fibers to exit from the end of the bridge. This was accomplished, for the first time, by using an enzyme that stopped growth inhibitory molecules from forming in the small scar that forms at the exit ramp of the bridge, where it is inserted into the spinal cord on the other side of the lesion. This allowed the growing axons to reconnect with the spinal cord. August 2006.

 

 

Study Establishes Safety Of Spinal Cord Stem Cell Transplantation - Transplanting human embryonic stem cells does not cause harm and can be used as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury, according to a recent study by UC Irvine researchers. UCI neurobiologist Hans Keirstead and colleagues at the Reeve-Irvine Research Center found that rats with either mild or severe spinal cord injuries that were transplanted with a treatment derived from human embryonic stem cells suffered no visible injury or ill effects as a result of the treatment itself. Furthermore, the study confirmed previous findings by Keirstead's lab - since replicated by four other laboratories around the world - that replacing a cell type lost after injury improves the outcome after spinal cord injury in rodents. The findings are published in the current issue of Regenerative Medicine, published by Future Medicine. "Establishing the safety of implanted embryonic stem cells is crucial before we can move forward with testing these treatments in clinical trials," said Keirstead, an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology and co-director of UCI's Stem Cell Research Center. "We must always remember that a human clinical trial is an experiment and, going into it, we need to assure ourselves as best as we can that the treatment will not cause harm. This study is an important step in that direction." August 2006.

 

 

Stem Cell Legislation Could Alter Science Forever; Experts Say If A Federal-Funding Bill Is Ever Passed, Direction Of Research Would Change - If the embryonic stem cell research bill vetoed by President Bush on Wednesday ever becomes law, experts agreed it would alter this emerging field of science forever. Although the House failed to override the first veto of the Bush presidency -- falling 51 votes short of the required two-thirds majority -- several legislators vowed Wednesday night to continue their fight to restore federal funding for the research. "Mr. President, we will not give up," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) told the Associated Press. "We will continue this battle." If proponents of embryonic stem cell research do win the moral and political war in the coming years, the victory would be scientifically significant, experts stressed. "It would be more than symbolic. It would have a huge impact, and in ways people hadn't really thought of," said David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. August 2006.

 

 

Spinal Cord Injuries Improved Years Later with Patients’ Own Olfactory Cells – A team of researchers from Hospital de Egas, Lisbon, Portugal and Wayne State University Medical School in Michigan, USA, have shown that stem cells taken from the olfactory mucosa can be used successfully to treat spinal cord injuries, even years after the injury occurred. A report published by the American Paraplegia Society says that seven patients, ranging in age from 18 to 32 years, who suffered severe spinal cord injuries as much as six and half years before, were treated with stem-like progenitor and ensheathing cells derived from the olfactory mucosa. The cells were cultivated and engrafted onto lesions on the patients’ spinal cord. Subsequent MRI scans showed “moderate to complete filling of the lesion sites.” The report says that two patients experienced return of sensation in their bladders and one a return of limited anal control. All the patients experienced some improvement in motor abilities. August 2006.

 

Regeneration After Spinal Cord Injury - John Houle, Ph.D., is Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Dr. Houle, who is the senior communicating author in the co-authored study, has demonstrated in a lab animal how a nerve removed from the leg and transplanted across a spinal cord injury, in combination with enzyme digestion of scar material, leads to regeneration of injured nerve endings and recovery of arm movements. According to Dr. Houle: “This study represents a major milestone in the battle to return spinal cord injury patients to a state of mobility, however there is still a lot of work to be done to adapt this procedure to human use.” A significant aspect of this study is that this process applies to animals that are newly injured as well as in animals with long-term injuries because of the ability to use the implanted nerve bridge to direct regeneration towards a specific target area in the spinal cord. July 2006.

 

 

Bacteria Enzyme May Help Regrow Spinal Cords; Sialidase Proves Effective In Injured Rats, Researchers Report - A treatment that promotes the regrowth of injured spinal cord nerves has proven successful in rats, U.S. researchers report. A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor used an enzyme called sialidase -- isolated from bacteria -- to treat a group of rats with nerve injuries. Within four weeks, the treated rats had grown twice as many new nerve fibers as untreated rats with the same kind of injury. "We have established that the enzyme sialidase, which destroys one of the molecules that inhibits nerve regeneration, is sufficient to robustly improve nerve fiber outgrowth from the spinal cord," study director Ronald Schnaar, a professor of pharmacology and neuroscience at Hopkins' Institute of Basic Biomedical Sciences, said in a prepared statement. July 2006.

 

 

Swiss Make Breakthrough In Spinal Research - Novartis has begun clinical trials on humans with acute spinal injuries after Swiss scientists successfully re-grew nerve fibres in monkeys' damaged spinal cords. It follows extensive research into spinal cord regeneration at the universities of Zurich and Fribourg, a report on which was published this week in Nature Medicine. In their six-year programme, researchers partially severed the spinal cords of 12 monkeys leading to paralysis in one hand. The monkeys were then treated with an antibody – known as anti-Nogo - that allowed nerves to re-grow up to 12 millimetres and enabled monkeys to regain 80 per cent of their movement. Armed with these conclusions and encouraging pre-clinical findings, Novartis has now initiated the first phase of clinical trials in humans, in collaboration with the Spinal Cord Injury Centre at Zurich University and other European and American spinal injury centres. The trials are designed for individuals who have suffered a serious accident in the ten days prior to treatment, rather than long-term paraplegics.  July 2006.

 

 

Brain-Computer Link Aids Paralyzed Patient; In A First, A Computer Enables Quadriplegic To Move Simple Devices - In the first such experiment in humans, researchers say a quadriplegic patient with spinal cord injury produced brain signals that allowed him to shift a cursor on a computer screen. Using signals picked up by a sensor implanted in his brain that were then translated into electronic impulses, the 25-year-old man was able to control a computer cursor that allowed him to manipulate mechanical devices. Successful use of this "brain-computer interface device" is being hailed as an important breakthrough for those paralyzed by injury or disease. "One of the most exciting findings is that one part of the brain -- the motor cortex that usually sends its signals down through the spinal cord to control movement -- can still be used by this patient to control an external device, even after the spinal cord injury," said lead researcher Dr. Leigh Hochberg, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. The study utilized a new brain-computer interface device called the BrainGate Neural Interface System. It's in the early stages of clinical testing, Hochberg said.  July 2006.