Experiment on rats show cure for spinal-cord injuries

Rats with spinal cord injury were able to recover some movement and no nerve damage was found after undergoing injections of polymer spheres.

A team of U.S. researchers headed by Ji Xin Cheng published their findings in the journal Nature Nanomedicine about their experimental treatment.

Copolymer  micelles are essentially synthetic drug-delivery spheres nearly 60 nanometers in diameter — approximately 100 times smaller than the diameter of a red blood cell.  These have been used in research for three decades as a drug-delivery vehicle.

“In our case, it’s a very new use of these structures,” Cheng said.  ”We are not using them as a drug carrier.  We use them as a membrane repair agent.”

When injected into the bloodstream the spheres act as “sticking plaster” for broken nerves, patching up the injury site.

“We believe they can penetrate the membrane and fuse the membrane,” Cheng added.

The ultimate goal of the study is to see this treatment being applied on people to find out if surrounding nerves of the spine injury will be protected from further damage.

[via newsdaily.com]