New Class of Drug Reverses Paralysis In Mice (ibtimes.com) 66
An anonymous reader quotes a report from International Business Times: US scientists have developed a new form of drug that promotes the regeneration of cells and reversed paralysis in mice with spinal injuries, allowing them to walk again within four weeks of treatment. The research was published in the journal Science on Thursday, and the team of Northwestern University scientists behind it hope to approach the Food and Drug Administration as early as next year to propose human trials. [Northwestern's Samuel Stupp, who led the study, and his team] used nanofibers to mimic the architecture of the "extracellular matrix" -- a naturally occurring network of molecules surrounding tissue that is responsible for supporting cells. Each fiber is about 10,000 times narrower than a human hair, and they are made up of hundreds of thousands of bioactive molecules called peptides that transmit signals to promote nerve regeneration. The therapy was injected as a gel into tissue surrounding the spinal cords of lab mice 24 hours after an incision was made in their spines.
The team decided to wait a day because humans who receive devastating spinal injuries from car accidents, gunshots and so on also experience delays in getting treatment. Four weeks later, mice who received the treatment regained their ability to walk almost as well as before the injury. Those left untreated did not. The mice were then put down to examine the impacts of the therapy on the cellular level, and the team found dramatic improvements to the spinal cords. The severed extensions of neurons called axons regenerated, and scar tissue that can act as a physical barrier to regeneration was significantly diminished. What's more, an insulating layer of axons called myelin that is important in transmitting electric signals had reformed, blood vessels that deliver nutrients to injured cells had formed, and more motor neurons survived.
A key discovery by the team was that creating a certain mutation in the molecules intensified their collective motion and heightened their efficacy. This is because receptors in neurons are naturally in constant motion, Stupp explained, and increasing the motion of the therapeutic molecules within the nanofibers helps connect them more effectively with their moving targets. The researchers in fact tested two versions of the treatment -- one with the mutation and one without -- and found that mice that received the modified version regained more function. The gel developed by the scientists is the first of its kind, but could usher in a new generation of medicines known as "supramolecular drugs," because the therapy is an assembly of many molecules rather than a single molecule, said Stupp. According to the team, it is safe because the materials biodegrade within a matter of weeks and become nutrients for cells. Stupp said he hopes to rapidly move direct to human studies next without the need for further animal testing, such as on primates.
The team decided to wait a day because humans who receive devastating spinal injuries from car accidents, gunshots and so on also experience delays in getting treatment. Four weeks later, mice who received the treatment regained their ability to walk almost as well as before the injury. Those left untreated did not. The mice were then put down to examine the impacts of the therapy on the cellular level, and the team found dramatic improvements to the spinal cords. The severed extensions of neurons called axons regenerated, and scar tissue that can act as a physical barrier to regeneration was significantly diminished. What's more, an insulating layer of axons called myelin that is important in transmitting electric signals had reformed, blood vessels that deliver nutrients to injured cells had formed, and more motor neurons survived.
A key discovery by the team was that creating a certain mutation in the molecules intensified their collective motion and heightened their efficacy. This is because receptors in neurons are naturally in constant motion, Stupp explained, and increasing the motion of the therapeutic molecules within the nanofibers helps connect them more effectively with their moving targets. The researchers in fact tested two versions of the treatment -- one with the mutation and one without -- and found that mice that received the modified version regained more function. The gel developed by the scientists is the first of its kind, but could usher in a new generation of medicines known as "supramolecular drugs," because the therapy is an assembly of many molecules rather than a single molecule, said Stupp. According to the team, it is safe because the materials biodegrade within a matter of weeks and become nutrients for cells. Stupp said he hopes to rapidly move direct to human studies next without the need for further animal testing, such as on primates.
Bad news for big wheelchair (Score:5, Funny)
Big wheelchair will never allow this to get out.
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I would think mouse wheelchairs would be very *small*.
Re:Bad news for big wheelchair (Score:5, Funny)
Big wheelchair will never allow this to get out.
They're ramping up their opposition even now ...
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You're right - there's no way they will just roll over and let this happen.
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I wish you were joking but I just read an article about a British MP getting paid £2,500 a month to convince his government not to tighten up rules on plastic packaging. When laws can be bought so cheaply it's easy to imagine a wheelchair manufacturer looking to block products that might reduce their sales.
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Or anti-science folks on the red side.
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What "anti-Science folks", troll? The guys, who claim, that Homo Sapiens — uniquely among the sixty five hundred species of Mammals — have more than two sexes [go.com], or are capable of changing their sex [thearticle.com] at will?
Re: Bad news for big wheelchair (Score:2)
Whoever says it is unique among mammals is misinformed or willfully blinding themselves. If gender is defined as being born with or without a Y-chromosome, that is stupid. For one thing, gender is controlled by a gene called SRY. The SRY can sometimes exist on the X-chromosome .. in which case the person will look and and act make .. but they would be XX. This is called XX male syndrome: Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Also, the SRY gene can have mutations or be turned off completely which means
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Name me one species of Mammals, that has more than two sexes. Or can change sex...
There aren't any — you rant is all about trying to redefine, what "sex" means. A semantics argument.
Follow-up post not containing the requested examples of Mammal-species capable of changing sex will be returned unopened.
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Adapt this to other diseases? (Score:3)
Re:Adapt this to other diseases? (Score:5, Interesting)
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune diseases in which the immune cells (mainly T-cells, but B-cells are hardly innocent either) mistakenly attack the myelin sheath on axons. What is needed to cure Multiple Sclerosis is at least these two things:
1. A tolerizing vaccine that can convince the immune system to back off on attacking myelin. Immune tolerization against specific things is possible (cancer is an expert at it, as are many viruses and parasites). The problem is humans are not yet very good at making tolerizing vaccines, although there have been many breakthroughs -- it is not as easy as it seems.
2. A mechanism to trigger remyelination. Remyelination is a fairly slow process, but there ought to be ways to trigger it such that it occurs much stronger (definitely possible, just difficult.)
Considering how little funds go into this fundamental research I don't expect anything great to happen soon .. however, it WILL happen -- nothing magical is needed. It's like if you see a bird, you know that heavier than air flying machines are possible .. even though you may not know enough aerodynamics to make it possible.
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Since we have socialized healthcare we should also have more socialized research funding.
When you look at the amount of money that goes into medical research it's actually not that much. Around $35bn/year for new drugs, for example. We should club together with other countries, fund it ourselves and then all the treatments can be available to us at low cost.
Congrats (Score:2)
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You're both wrong. They'll become charging parking spots for EV's, as it's closer to the building and it's power.
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How do they find mice (Score:1)
...with broken spines? Intentionally break them? Does somebody actually have "experienced rodent spine snapper" on their resume?
Re:How do they find mice (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think we really want to get into the weeds of 'terrible things researchers do to test animals'. We already know that subject is a minefield that isn't about to change anytime soon.
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Oh snap
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How do they find mice with broken spines?
"The therapy was injected as a gel into tissue surrounding the spinal cords of lab mice 24 hours after an incision was made in their spines."
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It's not clear if the incision was to cripple them or allow the gel in.
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Re:How do they find mice (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but they are given an anesthetic and it is done surgically. For example, many institutes make you specify which "USDA Pain Category" the animals will experience. They won't allow people to do research without monitoring the animals for pain/distress behaviors. If the pain is going to be Category E, you better have some damn good justification and monitoring. By law, the institution must annually report all category E procedures to the USDA.
Reference: https://www.research.uky.edu/d... [uky.edu]
Re:How do they find mice (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, there probably are researchers who specialize in medical procedures on lab mice. I mean... why not?
No one likes to think about this too closely, but let's get it out in the open, and clearly stated. Scientists deliberately injure lab mice to try to develop cures for humans. That's what lab mice are for, and that's how we get most advanced, near miraculous drugs and medical procedures that save the lives of you and your loved ones.
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But consider how lame that is for the cats?
Which cat enjoys it to play with a paralytic mouse?
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Which cat enjoys it to play with a paralytic mouse?
I know you're making a sarcastic joke, but in fact I have on several occasions watched a cat play "throw and chase" (by themselves with a dead mouse.
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I know you're making a sarcastic joke, but in fact I have on several occasions watched a cat play "throw and chase" (by themselves with a dead mouse.
That is true. Not really pleasant. But our cats at least ignore birds.
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Read the article: "incision was made in their spines".
Exemptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Exemptions (Score:4, Insightful)
There may not be any atheists in the fox hole, but there are no faith healers in the emergency room either.
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Dude, I'm stealing that. That's one of the best retorts I've read in a long, long time. Kudos.
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There are plenty of atheists in the fox hole, they just know when to keep quiet and not to upset the armed fuckup in the next fox hole.
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but there are no faith healers in the emergency room either.
Sure there are. They are just there as customers.
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Welp, healing the lame to walk... that's playing God there. Or at least playing Jesus.
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On a serious note, I wonder if the spinal cord regenerative therapy will also accelerate the development or metastasizing of cancer. "Miracle cures" often have a downside (much like the amazing mRNA spike generative therapies that are always highly safe and effective except when they kill/injure people or don't work). Anyway, cancer would be a prime candidate to study on this one.
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There might be chemicals in that drug!
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other applications - (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope there are many other applications of this inspiration.
In particular in the area of digital / neural interface. This has been a terrible problem. Electrodes, even fancy gold plated electrodes, just don't connect to neural networks in a sustainable way. Whoever finds the optimal solution will be well rewarded.
A brain so wired has potential beyond your imagining. I have the software to make that happen.
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How do you imagine a digital / neural interface working that is better than the connection through a smartphone with your eyes?
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I doubt a smartphone-eye combination is going to fix neurological problems.
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How do you imagine a digital / neural interface working that is better than the connection through a smartphone with your eyes?
A smartphone transfers rather slowly to the eyes, and eyes have no data transfer at all back to the smartphone.
Speed Dating. (Score:5, Funny)
"So what do you do for a living?"
"I paralyze mice."
"WHAAATT??!"
"I mean... I'm a race car driver."
Captain Mouse Unparalyzer (Score:2)
Might this work with older injuries? (Score:2)
Is there any chance this will work with older spinal cord injuries, or is healing/scarring complete and not amenable to this intervention?
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No idea, but my guess is yes. It may require more depletion of the scar tissue.. that is, it might need the help of Chondroitinase ABC, things like that
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It might require an operation, removing scar tissue (if there is some?), and probably a kind of substrate to bridge the gab.
If your spinal cords get broken, the two ends are usually several cm apart from each other. Perhaps a substrate could be coated with that stuff. Or could be a kind of "rubber" tube that gets refilled regularly from the outside and emits the substance.
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Or it may require mechanical stretching of the ends to touch/get near each other. Or something like it. But even the base version even only in mice is a massive breakthrough. There will be a lot of follow-up experimentation and some of it on humans.
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From what I can tell, not any time soon. What this does is allows the spinal cord to correctly heal itself. What these results suggest is that regrowth of nerve tissue is limited by it's ability to stay separate as they regrow (thus scar tissue). These fibers appear to lead the growth in a single direction, like water following a string. The alignment may be slightly different from their prior arrangement but the brain relearns. For this to work in old injuries it would require the surgical removal of
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People with partial paralysis (some nerves intact) won't be candidates for having the spine severed and regrown, so there will always be motivation to fix scarred damaged spinal cords, even if re-cutting and regrowing becomes a real option for some.
And thanks for sharing your take on this.
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Is there any chance this will work with older spinal cord injuries, or is healing/scarring complete and not amenable to this intervention?
Unclear. This is early-stage research and not aimed at older injuries. It is a significant break-through though. It is unclear how much will be needed in addition for older injuries and what additional problems there will be with them. I would expect that there will be significant research in that direction if this works out for humans in the base variant.
Pretty jaded, but can't resist the hopium (Score:1)
Hope it works for humans as well as for mice, but like I said, I am pretty jaded from all the amazing "real soon now" health research I've seen over the decades that has never panned out.
That's good (Score:1)
Re: That's good (Score:2)
True, but that goes mostly for medication whereas this seems much more a mechanical approach. This gives me some hope.
I wonder how long (Score:2)
The way it's primarily being used is important in its own right, although it might take 15 years to be a real treatment, but I'm thinking about the myelin regeneration. Because from what I remember of MS, it's characterized by striped myelin. So, if this gets to human trials, and if it works in a similar way, how long before people think to use it for other things?