Re: News article: More nerve regeneration

[Guest guest]

Yes, I'll continue to pray those scientists through. They will find it. They

will. I believe!

God Bless

Yolanda

News article: More nerve regeneration

NEW STUDY GIVES HOPE FOR NERVE REGENERATION

A study by a Packard Center scientist and his

colleagues at s

Hopkins makes an important step toward repair of

nerves after

they've been long damaged. The work, which involved

rat models and

stem cells from mice, is the first to show that nerve

regeneration

is possible, as long as six months after injury. The

repaired

nerves recovered about a quarter of their lost

function.

For some time, Center investigator Ahmet Hvke has

studied the

changes that occur in nerve cells after injury. He's

primarily

focused on the peripheral nervous system (PNS)-nerves

extending

from the spinal cord out to skin, muscles and

organs-where nerve

repair is more likely to occur than in the spinal cord

proper or

the brain.

" But even in the PNS, getting a piece long-damaged

nerve to regrow

would be highly unusual, " says Hvke. The results of

the current

study, which was presented at the San Francisco

meetings of the

American Neurological Association in October, should

help

understand principles of regrowth that apply to all

types of

nerves. " Of course our goal down the line is therapy, "

he says.

In this study, Hvke's team used a model system of

chronic nerve

injury. The researchers severed a nerve in the leg,

letting the

free piece deteriorate for six months. Then, they

connected a

new, freshly-cut nerve to that segment to see if

repair and

regrowth through it was still possible. Most

important, they

injected neural stem cells from mice to the nerve

area.

The happy result was that, in models using the stem

cells, nerve

fibers grew from the healthy nerve through the

formerly injured

section. And though it wasn't 100 percent, electrical

activity

was restored. Recordings of nerve activity in the foot

showed

messages were getting through the previously injured

leg nerve.

Hvke believes the success was due, in part, from stem

cell

secretion of a potent growth factor called GDNF. The

team also

had strong signs that natural systems that suppress

nerve

growth - nature's way of preventing nerve overgrowth -

were damped

down as a result of having stem cells at the injury

site.

" There's still work to do, " says Hvke. " We'd like to

improve the

recovery of nerve function so it's higher than 25

percent. We

also need to identify more precisely what combination

of growth

factors and other agents are missing in chronically

denervated

nerves. "

" Dr. Hvke's team has provided solid work that shows

nerve repair

is a worthwhile direction for ALS research to take, "

says

Rothstein, director of the Packard Center for ALS

Research at

s Hopkins. " We intend to help him continue. "

About The Packard Center for ALS Research at

s Hopkins

Located in Baltimore, the Packard Center for

ALS Research

at s Hopkins is a collaboration of scientists

worldwide,

working aggressively to develop new treatments and a

cure for

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou

Gehrig's

disease. The Center is the only institution of its

kind dedicated

solely to the disease. Its research is meant to

translate from

the laboratory bench to the clinic in record time.

Scientists and clinician members of the Center are

unsurpassed

at moving drugs reliably and rapidly from preclinical

experiments

to human trials. They're linked, directly or

indirectly, to the

world's major pharmaceutical and biotechnology

companies, which

have both infrastructure and experience to make

promising drugs

into therapies.

Center scientists are the first to propose and test a

combination

approach to drug therapy, a tactic that has worked for

AIDS,

cancer and other diseases.