Important Innovations

Medical Breakthrough - Gene Therapy Repairs Spinal Cord Damage   Spinal Cord Neurons Spinal Cord Injuries The numbers are staggering.  270,000 Americans are paralyzed by spinal cord injuries.  80% of them are male and 16 to 30 years old.  There has been no regenerative treatment to reverse the spinal cord damage.  Now, there's reason for hope.  Researchers at Kings College London have demonstrated that rats with spinal cord injury re-learn skilled hand movement after being treated with gene therapy. Strong Human to Animal Correlation These findings are significant because humans and rats use a similar sequence of movements when reaching and grasping objects.  The hope and expectation is that it will work on human spinal cord victims too.  It's so important because people with spinal cord injury often lose their ability to do everyday functions like writing, holding a fork and brushing their teeth.  The very basic things that we ...

Gene Therapy and Spinal Cord Injuries - New Research & New Hope from Kings College London Gene Therapy Reversing Spinal Cord Injuries Gene therapy, which is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease, shows promise in treating many ailments.  Those ailments include epilepsy, cancer, Parkinson's, osteoarthritis, asthma and much more.  Now researchers at Kings College London have shown that rats with spinal cord injuries can relearn skilled hand movements after receiving gene therapy.  The scientists believe the same will apply to humans. No Regenerative Treatment, Now Hope At this time, there are no regenerative treatments for spinal cord injuries.  Researchers are now testing a new gene therapy for regenerating damaged tissues in the spinal cord.  The new gene therapy can be switched on and off using antibiotics.  With this technique, it's now possible to treat large damaged areas with one injection and turn ...