Hope for those who are paralyzed – Thanks to Israeli experts paralyzed mice were able to walk
After having spinal cord implants, Israeli scientists were able to assist the paralyzed mice in walking. Experts who worked on these tests claim that they will be able to accomplish the same for individuals in clinical trials in less than three years. According to The Times of Israel, they want to “offer all the paralyzed people hope that they will be able to walk again.”
At Tel Aviv University, a team of researchers and physicians created the spinal cord tissue in human cells and then implanted it in 15 long-term paralyzed mice. Scientists reported in a study published in the journal Advanced Science on Monday that twelve of the mice were able to walk normally after that.
Professor Tal Dvir of Israel’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, who led the study team, said, “If this works for individuals, and we believe it will, we can give everyone who is paralyzed the hope that they will be able to walk again.” He went on to say that discussions with representatives from the US Food and Drug Administration about clinical trials are already underway.
People who are paralyzed could be saved using their own cells
Professor Tal Dvir further stated that, while all mice have had spinal implants from three-person cells, the plan is for each individual patient who undergoes the surgery to be placed in the bone marrow cell’s own body if the innovation is applied in humans.
According to Dvir, this will “enable the regeneration of injured tissue without the risk of rejection” and will eliminate the inhibition of the recipients’ immune systems, which is common with many transplants.
“Spinal cord injuries paralyze millions of people around the world, and there is still no viable treatment for their condition,” Dvir stated.
“People who are paralyzed at an early age are expected to spend the rest of their life in a wheelchair, incurring all of the social, financial, and health burdens that come with paralysis. We aim to find a solution and assist them in moving forward” researcher said.
Until now, several scientific teams have carried out procedures in which they generated stem cells from human-collected materials and injected them into the spinal cords of animals. Professor Dvir, on the other hand, pointed out that his team’s research was the first to use human cells to create genuine spine segments, which were then transplanted.
Hope
Another distinguishing feature of the Israeli team’s research is the treatment of long-paralyzed animals, while most stem cell studies focus on animals who have recently been paralyzed.
“The majority of patients who need treatment are people who have been paralyzed for a long period,” Dvir explained. “We employed both recently paralyzed and long-paralyzed mice in our study. In both cases, we were successful, and we expect this to be replicated in studies of patients who have been paralyzed for varying lengths of time.”
Professor Tal Dvir further stated that while the success rate for spinal cord regeneration in mice with chronic paralysis was 80%, it was 100% in mice with recent or short-term paralysis.
What does the spinal cord regeneration process look like in mice?
Professor Dvir explained that the approach was based on “taking a small sample of adipose tissue from the patient’s belly” to find “cells near an extracellular matrix.”
The cells were then isolated, genetically modified, and changed into something close to “embryonic stem cells,” which can transform into any sort of cell in the body.
The extracellular matrix created a “custom hydrogel” in which the stem cells were encapsulated “in a process that mimics embryonic spinal cord development” and transformed into “3D implants of neural networks with motor neurons.”
These implants are implanted in laboratory animals, who are divided into two groups: those that have recently been paralyzed and those who have been paralyzed for a long time.
Professor Dvir stated that a company called “Matricelf” had been established to bring the technology to clinical testing, which he estimated would take two and a half years. He also stated that, despite the fact that the experiment thus far has involved mice, the implants were made from human cells, indicating that the research is already advanced.
“We put human implants on mice rather than mouse implants on other mice, which means we didn’t have to start from the beginning to get to people.” Rather, we know how to prepare implants for patients, which gives us hope that clinical trials will begin soon,” the professor noted.
The Dvir team, which includes researchers Lior Wertheim, Dr. Reuven Edri, and Dr. Yona Goldshmit, believes the novel approach is applicable to a variety of diseases beyond spinal cord injuries, and is currently testing it. Parkinson’s disease, brain trauma, myocardial infarction, and age-related muscular dystrophy are all examples of traumas.
