[gurps] Cool Nerve cell growth info

[midnightwind at comcast.net]

Interesting twist (sort of a pun on silk, oh well)--

It's sort of interesting-- nerve regrowth has been a hot topic for so long.  Back in residency, over ten years ago now, an interesting article featured attempts to heal spinal cord injuries in rats using some synthesized organic filament scaffolding procedure.  It seemed to work, but did not completely resolve the issue of getting nerve cells not only to regrow, but to connect in the correct pattern that makes us work, despite utilizing scaffolding directed at the appropriate spinal cord regions (e.g. corticospinal tract to corticospinal tract etc.).   Also, rats tend to be more robust than humans...

Much stem cell/SCI (spinal cord injury)  research is happening in Mainland China these days.  In fact, China is acquiring some of the hottest minds in the world in the field- including from the USA.  A recent article featuring 100 SCI patients-- all of whose spinal cords were injected with stem cells at the site of injury--> no regrowth.  Unfortunately, the quality of research in Mainland China is still quite variable, so you can't be really sure what you are getting.  But they do not have the ethics/FDA questions that they do in the USA.

The progress in cardiac muscle cells and bone cells seems more immediately applicable... Still, interesting progress.

Thanks for the article, Susan

-vk


-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Susan Koziel <kataryna_dragonweaver at yahoo.com> 

> Hi guys, 
> Seems like there is some research going into using 
> silk as a scaffold for growing nerve cells... 
> http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/bia/gallery.html?image=2 
> 
> http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD023657.html 
> 
> perhaps regenerating damaged nerves is on the near 
> horizon. 
> 
> Cool! 
> -Sue-just-had-to-share 
> 
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