Mice paralyzed due to spinal cord injury are now able to walk again thanks to a team of German scientists who treated the damaged, once unstable, neural junction with design proteins.
Spinal injuries in humans, often caused by sports or traffic accidents, leave them paralyzed because not all the nerve fibers that carry information between the muscles and the brain can grow back.
But the researchers from Ruhr Bochum University managed to regenerate the neural cells of paralyzed mice using designer proteins.
“The unique thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those self-extracting neural cells, but is also transported further (through the brain), “team leader Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview.
“In this way, with relatively little intervention, we stimulate a large number of nerves to regenerate and that’s why the mice can walk again.”
The paralyzed rodents who received the treatment started walking after two or three weeks, he said.
The treatment involves injecting carriers of genetic information into the brain to the protein, called hyper-interleukin-6, according to the university’s website.
The team is investigating whether the treatment can be improved.
“We also need to see if our approach works on larger mammals. We would think of pigs, dogs or primates, for example,” Fischer said.
“Then, if it worked there, we had to make sure the treatment is safe for people as well. But that will definitely take several years.”