Peripheral nerve regeneration advance
Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, Ph.D, assistant biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis designed a system for peripheral nerve regeneration that could have implications for successful stem cell delivery and spinal cord repair. It is a nerve guide tube filled with a sticky gel that contains growth factor proteins to stimulate nerve regeneration and sugars and peptides for binding. So far, this system has shown positive results in rat studies.
Methods used today for nerve regeneration include taking a nerve from a donor site on the injured person’s body, and sewing the donor nerve in between the two ends of the injured nerve. Another method is the use of cadaver nerves, but each of these come with major problems and risks. Sakiyama-Elbert worked with Susan Mackinnon and Robert H. Shoenberg to place exogenous sticky material that is capable of binding growth factors throughout the gel. This causes the growth factor proteins to remain in the gel for months. The time of release for these components is key to the success of this system. Sakiyama-Elbert presented the results she found at a conference in April. Sakiyayam-Elbert is also exploring another approach to peripheral nerve regeneration that involves creating her own protein consisting of a growth factor, and two different domains. She is also one of the few researchers exploring matrixes for spinal cord damage.
Sakiyama-Elbert comments that “the overall goal of this direction of my research is to apply novel bioengineering technology to allow controlled release of growth factors from scaffolds that facilitate the regeneration of adult spinal cord axons through and beyond spinal cord lesions," Sakiyama-Elbert said. "The scaffolds are drug-delivery systems consisting of protein matrices containing growth factors that are released in a sustained manner during tissue regeneration."
I found this article interesting because it shows that improvements can always be made in the medical field. The impossible becomes the possible.
http://www.biology-online.org/articles/horizons_nerve_repair.html
Posted for Macie Richmond
Methods used today for nerve regeneration include taking a nerve from a donor site on the injured person’s body, and sewing the donor nerve in between the two ends of the injured nerve. Another method is the use of cadaver nerves, but each of these come with major problems and risks. Sakiyama-Elbert worked with Susan Mackinnon and Robert H. Shoenberg to place exogenous sticky material that is capable of binding growth factors throughout the gel. This causes the growth factor proteins to remain in the gel for months. The time of release for these components is key to the success of this system. Sakiyama-Elbert presented the results she found at a conference in April. Sakiyayam-Elbert is also exploring another approach to peripheral nerve regeneration that involves creating her own protein consisting of a growth factor, and two different domains. She is also one of the few researchers exploring matrixes for spinal cord damage.
Sakiyama-Elbert comments that “the overall goal of this direction of my research is to apply novel bioengineering technology to allow controlled release of growth factors from scaffolds that facilitate the regeneration of adult spinal cord axons through and beyond spinal cord lesions," Sakiyama-Elbert said. "The scaffolds are drug-delivery systems consisting of protein matrices containing growth factors that are released in a sustained manner during tissue regeneration."
I found this article interesting because it shows that improvements can always be made in the medical field. The impossible becomes the possible.
http://www.biology-online.org/articles/horizons_nerve_repair.html
Posted for Macie Richmond
posted by Jeremy Wasser at 7:23 AM
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