http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?actio ... s&id=55907
UK professor awarded Reeve-Irvine medal for spinal cord repair study
New York, Nov.21 : Professor Geoffrey Raisman, a Fellow of the Royal Society, has been awarded along with Dr. Carl Cotman the prestigious Reeve-Irvine Research Medal for his work in contributing to promoting repair and recovery of function in the damaged spinal cord.
Professor Raisman is Chair of Neurological Regeneration at Britain's Institute of Neurology, University College London, and heads the research team working in this field at the British Neurological Research Trust, which was founded by the late Norman Lee CBE of Beverly Hills California.
The medal is awarded to Professor Raisman for his discoveries related to sprouting/synapse reorganisation in the central nervous system, the breakthrough in our understanding of mechanisms underlying adult neuroplasticity.
Working with teams of neurosurgeons at the London National Hospital for Neurology and Neuroscience in London, Dr Raisman is expecting to apply his decades of research in this fi eld to human safety testing in the first months of 2006, with a view to proof of principle that, for the first time, severed nerves in the human central nervous system can be effectively repaired and restored to function.
Initial work will focus on a typical injury called brachial plexus avulsion, where patients who have suffered injury in motor cycle accidents have lost the use of their arm.
Further application in a range of other clinical cases of spinal cord injury is envisaged, including forms of stroke, blindness and deafness. Such successful application would revolutionise the treatment of hitherto incurable conditions and offer hope to a huge number of patients around the world.
The presentation in New York was at the annual fund-raising event sponsored by the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
New hope for avulsions!
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richinma2005
- Posts: 861
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:00 pm
- Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Daughter Kailyn ROBPI, June 14, 1997.
Surgery with Dr Waters (BCH), April 1999 and in February 2012
2 more daughters, Julia (1999), Sarah(2002) born Cesarean.
-
cbe411
- Posts: 1393
- Joined: Sun Jun 01, 2003 8:27 pm
- Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: MVA in 2001, nerve graph in 2002, Median Nerve Transfer in 2004 and an unsuccessful Gracillis Muscle Transfer in 2006. I am living life and loving it! Feel free to contact me :)
- Location: Grosse Pointe Woods, MI
- Contact:
Re: New hope for avulsions!
Very exciting! THanks Rich!
COurt
COurt
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Christopher
- Posts: 845
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 10:09 pm
- Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Date of Injury: 12/15/02
Level of Injury:
-dominant side C5, C6, & C7 avulsed. C8 & T1 stretched & crushed
BPI Related Surgeries:
-2 Intercostal nerves grafted to Biceps muscle,
-Free-Gracilis muscle transfer to Biceps Region innervated with 2 Intercostal nerves grafts.
-2 Sural nerves harvested from both Calves for nerve grafting.
-Partial Ulnar nerve grafted to Long Triceps.
-Uninjured C7 Hemi-Contralateral cross-over to Deltoid muscle.
-Wrist flexor tendon transfer to middle, ring, & pinky finger extensors.
Surgical medical facility:
Brachial Plexus Clinic at The Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN
(all surgeries successful)
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
~Theodore Roosevelt - Location: Los Angeles, California USA
Re: New hope for avulsions!
Rich,
Thanks so much for that post!
Over a year & a half ago I was trying to get Dr. Geoffrey Raisman (Regenerative Stem Cell Specialist), Dr. Thomas Carlstedt (re-implant specialist for avulsed nerves)(both Drs. in the U.K.), & Dr. Carlos Lima (Neurosurgeon specializing spinal injury paralysis & using adult stem cells from the olfactory cavity in your nose. Based Portugal) together to try and do an experimental stem cell & neural re-implantation surgery on me. Unfortunately the project couldn't move forward due to the political ties each Dr. has with the institution/hospital they work from.
These surgeries have already been done on lab rats with success. So I don't know how far the surgeries have to be perfected before they are deemed acceptable for humans, while lives and arms are being lost. Sadly after meeting with Dr. Carlstedt and realizing the futility of trying to get these Drs. all together I gave up on my incessant research and my motivation plummeted on helping evolve the stem cell promise for BPI. I felt the best thing I could offer was myself as a willing participant and patient, to me a risk worth taking and a choice much more aligned to who I was prior my injury. Now my muscles are wasted away beyond regeneration and useless to both the amazing possibilities of medicine and me! I know Dr. Carlstedt was upset because he's been trying to perfect the nerve re-implantation surgery for over twenty years and he said that he can't progress any further with out the assistance of some kind of neural growth factor to help coax the axonal regeneration from the spinal cord into the re-implanted nerves, the mechanics have been worked out but not the chemistry.
All my interests in stem cell regeneration were started with watching a truly amazing program on PBS called 'Miracle Cell'. It's worth the purchase, I promise anyone who watches it with this injury will weep.
Below is just part of the transcript from the program where Dr. Raisman is interviewed and discusses the successful stem cell trails on rats with paralyzed arms!!!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/about_episode6.html (original program)
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/tran ... sode6.html (transcript)
Narrator: But now, spinal injury patients like Kim may have another option. Medical researchers believe they have found a way of using adult stem cells to regenerate nerve fibers. The source of the cells was staring them in the face.
Geoffrey Raisman: What was found is that the nerve cells in the nose are continually replaced throughout life, and that's quite important, because we lose them all if we have a cold, or if there's pollution. But we don't lose the sense of smell. That comes back. So that means that those nerve cells are capable of being replaced from a stem cell. This is one part of the nervous system, where there is a continuous replacement and formation of new nerve cells throughout life. And this is there as a result of the evolution of the nose.
Narrator: The idea that stem cells from one's own nose could offer a safe and effective therapy for spinal injuries, prompted immediate research.
Kim Gould: There's always a risk if you have cells from somebody else, or from a fetus, that they'd be rejected. But with regenerative therapy it's encouraging your own cells to regenerate and to repair yourself. I could get on with my life as I am, but you want the best quality of life. So I'm going to go for whatever's out there.
Narrator: Experiments on rats have yielded promising results. In one trial in the UK, scientists cut the nerves that lead to the animal's left forepaw. With such an injury, the rat could no longer use the paw to climb effectively. Nor could it use that paw to reach for its food. Stem cells were then harvested from the animal's nose and transplanted around the damaged nerve. Within weeks, the treatment produced noticeable results.
Geoffrey Raisman: We've been able to restore the ability to climb. We've been able to restore complex reaching and control movements of the use of the forepaw. The sort of functions that a patient would want to recover if they didn't have the use of their hand. When we transplant the cells into that area of damage, the function comes back. You're seeing a glimpse through a doorway that has never been opened before.
This is what will get people out of wheelchairs. This is what will make stroke patients get better. This is what will restore the optic nerve in blindness, and the auditory nerve in deafness. If we can push that door open, there's an immense amount behind it. This will be revolutionary if we're successful.
Narrator: This is welcome news for actor, director and quadriplegic Christopher Reeve. Injured when he fell from a horse in 1995, he is paralyzed from the neck down. But Reeve has vowed that he will walk again. He has made remarkable gains with intense physiotherapy, but he is now past his fiftieth birthday, and fighting the natural downturn in his body's ability to heal.
He is a vocal supporter of stem cell research, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation keeps a close eye on all the latest advances. As the research progresses, scientists learn more about the mechanism that allows stem cells to repair the body.
Geoffrey Raisman: Here in this electron microscopic image, we're looking at a mass of stem cells harvested from the nose and have been transplanted into a rat's spinal cord. You can see this pale, this grayish area, with the two blobs. These are the transplanted stem cells. So here you can see the degree of intimacy in the relationship between the nerve fibers, which are growing, and the transplanted cells, which are making them grow.
So there's a nerve fiber, it's a nerve fiber which has been repaired, it's regenerated. And this is the nucleus of a transplanted stem cell, and you can see how the stem cell is wrapping round that nerve fiber. And here's another stem cell, and here it is wrapping around another nerve fiber. What you're seeing here is an act of creation by these cells.
Narator: The stem cells surround and support the rat's damaged nerve cells, giving them the ability to heal and regain function.
Geoffrey Raisman: We get consistent reconnection and restoration of function.
Thanks so much for that post!
Over a year & a half ago I was trying to get Dr. Geoffrey Raisman (Regenerative Stem Cell Specialist), Dr. Thomas Carlstedt (re-implant specialist for avulsed nerves)(both Drs. in the U.K.), & Dr. Carlos Lima (Neurosurgeon specializing spinal injury paralysis & using adult stem cells from the olfactory cavity in your nose. Based Portugal) together to try and do an experimental stem cell & neural re-implantation surgery on me. Unfortunately the project couldn't move forward due to the political ties each Dr. has with the institution/hospital they work from.
These surgeries have already been done on lab rats with success. So I don't know how far the surgeries have to be perfected before they are deemed acceptable for humans, while lives and arms are being lost. Sadly after meeting with Dr. Carlstedt and realizing the futility of trying to get these Drs. all together I gave up on my incessant research and my motivation plummeted on helping evolve the stem cell promise for BPI. I felt the best thing I could offer was myself as a willing participant and patient, to me a risk worth taking and a choice much more aligned to who I was prior my injury. Now my muscles are wasted away beyond regeneration and useless to both the amazing possibilities of medicine and me! I know Dr. Carlstedt was upset because he's been trying to perfect the nerve re-implantation surgery for over twenty years and he said that he can't progress any further with out the assistance of some kind of neural growth factor to help coax the axonal regeneration from the spinal cord into the re-implanted nerves, the mechanics have been worked out but not the chemistry.
All my interests in stem cell regeneration were started with watching a truly amazing program on PBS called 'Miracle Cell'. It's worth the purchase, I promise anyone who watches it with this injury will weep.
Below is just part of the transcript from the program where Dr. Raisman is interviewed and discusses the successful stem cell trails on rats with paralyzed arms!!!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/about_episode6.html (original program)
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/tran ... sode6.html (transcript)
Narrator: But now, spinal injury patients like Kim may have another option. Medical researchers believe they have found a way of using adult stem cells to regenerate nerve fibers. The source of the cells was staring them in the face.
Geoffrey Raisman: What was found is that the nerve cells in the nose are continually replaced throughout life, and that's quite important, because we lose them all if we have a cold, or if there's pollution. But we don't lose the sense of smell. That comes back. So that means that those nerve cells are capable of being replaced from a stem cell. This is one part of the nervous system, where there is a continuous replacement and formation of new nerve cells throughout life. And this is there as a result of the evolution of the nose.
Narrator: The idea that stem cells from one's own nose could offer a safe and effective therapy for spinal injuries, prompted immediate research.
Kim Gould: There's always a risk if you have cells from somebody else, or from a fetus, that they'd be rejected. But with regenerative therapy it's encouraging your own cells to regenerate and to repair yourself. I could get on with my life as I am, but you want the best quality of life. So I'm going to go for whatever's out there.
Narrator: Experiments on rats have yielded promising results. In one trial in the UK, scientists cut the nerves that lead to the animal's left forepaw. With such an injury, the rat could no longer use the paw to climb effectively. Nor could it use that paw to reach for its food. Stem cells were then harvested from the animal's nose and transplanted around the damaged nerve. Within weeks, the treatment produced noticeable results.
Geoffrey Raisman: We've been able to restore the ability to climb. We've been able to restore complex reaching and control movements of the use of the forepaw. The sort of functions that a patient would want to recover if they didn't have the use of their hand. When we transplant the cells into that area of damage, the function comes back. You're seeing a glimpse through a doorway that has never been opened before.
This is what will get people out of wheelchairs. This is what will make stroke patients get better. This is what will restore the optic nerve in blindness, and the auditory nerve in deafness. If we can push that door open, there's an immense amount behind it. This will be revolutionary if we're successful.
Narrator: This is welcome news for actor, director and quadriplegic Christopher Reeve. Injured when he fell from a horse in 1995, he is paralyzed from the neck down. But Reeve has vowed that he will walk again. He has made remarkable gains with intense physiotherapy, but he is now past his fiftieth birthday, and fighting the natural downturn in his body's ability to heal.
He is a vocal supporter of stem cell research, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation keeps a close eye on all the latest advances. As the research progresses, scientists learn more about the mechanism that allows stem cells to repair the body.
Geoffrey Raisman: Here in this electron microscopic image, we're looking at a mass of stem cells harvested from the nose and have been transplanted into a rat's spinal cord. You can see this pale, this grayish area, with the two blobs. These are the transplanted stem cells. So here you can see the degree of intimacy in the relationship between the nerve fibers, which are growing, and the transplanted cells, which are making them grow.
So there's a nerve fiber, it's a nerve fiber which has been repaired, it's regenerated. And this is the nucleus of a transplanted stem cell, and you can see how the stem cell is wrapping round that nerve fiber. And here's another stem cell, and here it is wrapping around another nerve fiber. What you're seeing here is an act of creation by these cells.
Narator: The stem cells surround and support the rat's damaged nerve cells, giving them the ability to heal and regain function.
Geoffrey Raisman: We get consistent reconnection and restoration of function.