Paralyzed man can stand again after receiving 'reprogrammed' stem cells
Paralyzed man can stand again after receiving 'reprogrammed' stem cells
A paralyzed man can be back on his own feet after an injection of neural stem cells to treat his spinal cord injury. The Japanese man was one of four subjects in a Pilot test , which used reprogrammed stem cells to treat fully paralyzed people.
Another participant can now move his arms and legs, while the other two showed no significant improvements. The study was led by Hideyuki Okano, a stem cell scientist at the Keio University in Tokyo.
The results that were announced on March 21 at a press conference and have not yet been examined indicate that the treatment is safe, say the researchers.
"This is a great positive result. It is very exciting for the field," says James St John, a translational neuroscientist at Griffith University on Gold Coast, Australia.
Earlier studies that used other types of stem cells have also shown that the therapy is safe, but has been delivered to previously mixed results. "So far nothing really worked," says St John.
larger studies will be necessary to determine whether the improvements that have been observed in the two subjects of the current study are actually due to the treatment. It could also be that the patients experienced natural recovery, adds St John.
In 2019 around 0.9 million people suffered a spinal cord injury worldwide, and about 20 million people lived with this disease 1 .
reprogrammed cells
Reprogrammed or induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) are generated by putting adult cells back into an embryonic state from which they can develop into other cell types.
In this study, IPS cells obtained from a donor were used to create neural predecessor cells. Two million of these cells were injected at the injury site of each patient, hoping that they will eventually develop into neurons and glial cells.
The first operation of the experiment took place in December 2021; The other three were carried out between 2022 and 2023. All four recipients were adults, two of them were 60 years or older. The operation was carried out between two and four weeks after the damage, explains Okano. The recipients have been given immune -suppressing drugs to prevent their bodies from attacking the cells within the first six months after the operation.
The results are the latest in a number of small human studies that test the potential of IPS cells, Tissue to regenerate and Diseases to treat .
learning to walk
The researchers did not observe any serious side effects during the one -year follow -up examination.
All participants began trying the highest injury classification A, which was measured by the American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS). People with this degree of impairment have no sensory or motor functions below the injury point. Two of the participants showed no improvements in their feeling or in the ability to move in the lowest section of their spinal cord. A subject reached the classification C after the operation and can move some of its arm and leg muscles, but are not independent. Another subject improved to classification D (normal function is classified as E) and can now be independent. "This person is now training to go," says Okano. "This is a dramatic recovery."
Preliminary analyzes of the data indicate that the treatment is effective, so Okano.
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thing, W. et al. Spine 47, 1532–1540 (2022).
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muheremu, A., Shu, L., Liang, J., Aili, A. & Jiang, K. Transl. Neurosci. 12, 494–511 (2021).