Scientists repair spinal cord injuries in monkeys using human stem cells

 

Scientists at the University Of San Diego School Of Medicine have taken everyone by surprise with their recent successful research on monkeys with spinal cord injury. Neuroscientists and surgeons from the university used human neural progenitor stem cells to graft into rhesus monkeys with neurodegenerative complications. More than just finding an easy access to the cells, they adjusted well to the surrounding environment, treating the injured spines of the monkeys by growing into nerve cells and fostering neuronal connections to restore their performance ability.  As a result, the monkeys with injured spinal cord developed a balanced capacity to grasp an orange.

The successful outcome of the research has been published in Nature Medicine. This is welcome news for many of us who are well aware of the sufferings and adversities related to this neurodegenerative disease.  

Why Is It Effective For The Treatment Of Neurodegenerative Disorder?

We know how it feels to the sufferers. The consequences of this disorder are quite debilitating and uncontrollable sometimes for the families too. It hinders us from developing a cognitive skill, and interferes with our daily life, impacting the quality of our living. Until now, we have not witnessed any development of such therapies or treatments which can be effective to our symptoms and improve the quality of our life.  

The positive outcome related to the study from the University of California-San Diego allows us to relive our lives once again. We can hope to overcome these misfortunes soon with an advanced neurodegenerative therapy or more stem cell based therapies for humans too. This can be possible one day since humans and their closest living relatives share as much as 93% of the same DNA with each other.  Maybe, this cellular therapy is still in its earlier or infancy phase, it does raise some hopes for use with many conditions like neurodegenerative disease and nervous system injuries in humans.

How The Study Worked To Cure Monkey’s Injured Spines?

It was observed in the study that the grafted human neural progenitor cells (NPSc) in the brains of monkeys proliferated into many cell types as human axons and synapses- a type of nerve cells and corrected the functions of their forelimbs.

Monkeys with spinal cord injuries received a transplant of human neural progenitor cells at the injury site of two weeks old. In order to make the grafts adhere to the site, fibrinogen-thrombin- a protein enzyme was used. This helped the process of survival and growth of the cells. The monkeys received immunosuppressive drugs lest they did not reject the implanted cells from their injured sites. After nine months, the scientists saw a successful result as the NPCs grew into neural cells and turned into healthy tissues. The newly developed nerve extensions known as axons triggered a chemical signal to initiate a communication process with the brain cells. Any spinal cord injury causes damage to the nerve cells and axon extensions. An inhibitory growth environment factor creates a hurdle to regenerate these damaged cells once again in the monkeys. But the applications of NPCs ease the prevention of the effects of that growth factor in monkeys, and restore the functions of axon extensions. “For more than three decades, spinal cord injury research has slowly moved toward the elusive goal of abundant, long-distance regeneration of injured axons, which is fundamental to any real restoration of physical function,” says, Mark Tuszynski, professor at the University of California- San Diego.

The entire process helped scientists overcome the major hurdle and enabled them to reinstate the forelimb functions for monkeys.

Next Step

NPCs are capable of growing into different neural cells to form connections so as to build a central nervous system in monkeys. But, it is time to find out if the same technique will be useful for humans to restore their sensory and motor neurons by growing long axons.  “We definitely have more confidence to do this type of treatment in human,” says study co-author Mark Tuszynski.

We can rest assured for a fruitful result for humans too, as this study for the first time successfully was tested on primates rather than on rodents.  “It’s a big leap to go from rodents to primates, especially in the case of spinal cord injury studies,” says Steve Goldman, a neuroscientist from the University of Rochester.