For those that haven't seen the Stem Cell program on PBS called "Miracle Cell" you should at the very least read the transcript online. I'll put a part of it below. I can't believe that anyone could watch that program and say that there is not a cure for BPI.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/tran ... sode6.html
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 (essentially the Brachial Plexus). With such an injury, the rat could no longer use the paw to climb. 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.
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.
Kim Gould: When I keep hearing all the scientists saying. Well, its -- ye ah, we can prove it on rats and mice, and it's, yeah, well, you know, forget about the rats and mice get on to us. It's so frustrating. It's got to be done now, and if we are prepared to take the risk, try it on us. I am prepared to be the human animal experiment. Why not?
Narrator: But getting permission for human trials is a slow process, as regulators must evaluate the safety of every proposed treatment. Such trials are at least two years away in the US and the UK. Here in Portugal however, the first human tests of this experimental new therapy are already underway. At this public hospital in Lisbon, neurologist Carlos Lima has treated more than 20 carefully-selected spinal injury patients with their own nasal stem cells. Kim Gould has met Dr. Lima's stringent requirements and been approved for the trial. She is eager to know all the details before she goes under the knife.