5 ms·

The article notes, "This process of regeneration is made possible by olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which provide a pathway for the fibres to grow back." I

The article notes, "This process of regeneration is made possible by olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which provide a pathway for the fibres to grow back." In other words, this was not an experimental treatment with stem cells (pluripotent cells). The story details here are interesting to me, as my late dad spent the last six years of his life paralyzed from the chin down from a spinal cord injury (a slip and fall on ice on a parking lot). His spinal cord was not completely severed, so he had quite a lot of sensation from the parts of his body that were immobilized, but he was not able to learn to walk with a walking frame even as well as the patient reported on here. (My dad's injury was much higher up on the spinal cord, which makes a big difference. His bruising of his spinal cord was at the second cervical vertebra.) The article continues, "All those involved in the research are keen not to raise false hopes in patients and stress that the success will need to be repeated to show definitively whether it can stimulate spinal cord regeneration." Yes. This is a very early result, but there seems to be something here that has achieved results never before achieved, and if those results can be replicated in other patients, this will be great news. The article mentions what kind of patients the experimental team is looking for. "Dr Tabakow said: "Our team in Poland would be prepared to consider patients from anywhere in the world who are suitable for this therapy. They are likely to have had a knife wound injury where the spinal cord has been cleanly severed." Many spinal cord injuries are bruises or tears rather than cuts, and may not heal as well with the technique described in the article. But this is a start, and may open up investigation of other approaches to repairing injuries to the spinal cord.

fredkingham 12y ago
He's been doing this since the 70s. When I broke my back 10 years ago there was another panarama in which he'd shown dramatic improvement in rats. He's only got round to spinal injury's now because its something occasionally improves without aid and is therefore unreliably for scientific tests. He was looking at other types of injury (I can't remember the name) where the nerves to the arm are torn out, as this never shows any signs of recovery. He's now moved on to knife wounds as these offer the cleanest types of complete break ie very unlikely to improve later. Raisman has been thorough and methodical about this. Its his life's work and I have no doubt he'll succeed (I was actually in hospital with Dan Nicholls, whose father has been funding Reiman's research http://www.nsif.org.uk/ http://www.nsif.org.uk/)
- jtheory 12y ago
  It's easy to be confused about the time scale on this kind of work; it's hidden from public view until there's an appropriately newsworthy milestone. As you point out, this is not a "Eureka!" moment at all; it's a waypoint on an arduous path that has taken decades of work, and will continue on (largely equally slowly) for a long time to come. The operation discussed in the article was two years ago; it's taken that much time (with intense physical therapy the entire time!) before he has gotten the mobility he has now.
geographomics 12y ago
Interesting thing from reading the paper was that they deliberately didn't purify the olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory mucosa (OM) biopsy, as other work has shown it to be less effective if purified. So there may be other cell types or molecular factors at play here as well. Another group has previously found some mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the OM - or at least, cells with known MSC markers - so that's also a possibility for aiding repair. Very much looking forward to seeing where this research heads anyway.

fredkingham 12y ago

He's been doing this since the 70s. When I broke my back 10 years ago there was another panarama in which he'd shown dramatic improvement in rats. He's only got round to spinal injury's now because its something occasionally improves without aid and is therefore unreliably for scientific tests. He was looking at other types of injury (I can't remember the name) where the nerves to the arm are torn out, as this never shows any signs of recovery. He's now moved on to knife wounds as these offer the cleanest types of complete break ie very unlikely to improve later. Raisman has been thorough and methodical about this. Its his life's work and I have no doubt he'll succeed (I was actually in hospital with Dan Nicholls, whose father has been funding Reiman's research http://www.nsif.org.uk/ http://www.nsif.org.uk/)

jtheory 12y ago
It's easy to be confused about the time scale on this kind of work; it's hidden from public view until there's an appropriately newsworthy milestone. As you point out, this is not a "Eureka!" moment at all; it's a waypoint on an arduous path that has taken decades of work, and will continue on (largely equally slowly) for a long time to come. The operation discussed in the article was two years ago; it's taken that much time (with intense physical therapy the entire time!) before he has gotten the mobility he has now.

geographomics 12y ago

Interesting thing from reading the paper was that they deliberately didn't purify the olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory mucosa (OM) biopsy, as other work has shown it to be less effective if purified. So there may be other cell types or molecular factors at play here as well. Another group has previously found some mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the OM - or at least, cells with known MSC markers - so that's also a possibility for aiding repair. Very much looking forward to seeing where this research heads anyway.