[HN Gopher] First-of-its-kind trial enables paralysed man to sta...
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First-of-its-kind trial enables paralysed man to stand via stem
cell injection
Author : bentobean
Score : 119 points
Date : 2025-03-24 18:07 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| bentobean wrote:
| https://archive.ph/DRYvk
| sharpshadow wrote:
| That's truly amazing! Maybe someday we can heal brain damage his
| way.
| lambdaone wrote:
| _Possibly_ enables him to stand, according to the article -
| several other patients weren 't helped by the treatment, and in
| the case that showed a positive effect the researchers currently
| can't eliminate the possibility of natural recovery causing the
| improvement.
|
| But it's promising work, shows the treatment seems at least to be
| safe, and more research will no doubt follow to clarify this.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| It wasn't clear from the article: how do you naturally recover
| from a spinal cord injury? I'm assuming we can't be talking
| about a fully severed spinal cord.
|
| Is it common to recover from a spinal cord injury that leads to
| some sort of paralysis?
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| Common? No idea.
|
| I witnessed someone paralyzed from cervical radiculopathy in
| the neck caused by youthful horseplay. Full recovery within a
| month. Scared us all when he went limp.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Nerves do regrow, just very very slowly.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Nerves do regrow, but not from the spinal cord as I
| understand it, and just because they regrow does not mean
| they regrow along the path which is needed to repair
| function.
|
| My father broke his Bricial Plexis (the nerves running
| through your shoulder to your arm). There was an 18 hour
| surgery to re-trace the path for the nerves to grow. Some
| nerves made a connection, and he has minimal movement in
| his fingers. However, most of his arm is still paralyzed.
| ainiriand wrote:
| I got the ear nerve almost severed as a kid and I am still
| 100% deaf from that ear, it's been 30 years already.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| How does a stem cell with somebody else's DNA not trigger your
| own immune system? I'd understand if you could repurpose your own
| bone marrow (which is a type of stem cell, right?) or
| neurological stem cells, but I'd sort of expect the immune system
| to reject others similar to a bad organ transplant or wrong blood
| type transfusion.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Recipients were given immune-suppressing drugs to prevent
| their bodies from attacking the cells for six months after the
| surgery.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Seems like it would need to be lifelong because those cells
| end up differentiating and fixing the damage so they will
| always be in there.
| Cerium wrote:
| Unless the cells actually do nothing and once they are dead
| you no longer need immune suppression.
| umpalumpaaa wrote:
| Immunosuppressive or immune modulating drugs are not that
| bad. Usually people can take them without too much issues.
| Yes: Your risk for cancer increases a bit and you have to
| be careful to not get sick etc. but overall its not that
| bad.
|
| Most people who have autoimmune diseases also need to take
| those drugs usually for life - (smaller dosages but
| still)...
| LoganDark wrote:
| > and you have to be careful to not get sick etc.
|
| Sooo easy.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Especially if you have kids.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| or work in an office, one kid gets sick, guess what, now
| it's your problem
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I have sympathy for people with autoimmune diseases on
| immunosuppressants who have family in developing
| countries, where a lot of complicated infections are
| easier to catch. They solve the problem in the context of
| our (generally? decreasingly?) sterile world, but not
| globally.
| trollbridge wrote:
| It would seem worthwhile to bank things like umbilical cord
| blood so that if these therapies work in the future, you have a
| supply of your own cells. Immunosuppressive therapy isn't that
| fun.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| That would be cool, being able to generate stem cells with
| your own DNA dynamically later in life would be cooler
| (please pardon my elementary biology approach to this, I know
| that is an an Everest sized mountain to climb)
| tempestn wrote:
| There are companies now offering stem cell culturing and
| storage from adult samples. Something I've been meaning to
| look into actually.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Isn't Ronnie Coleman also going through this to be able to walk
| again?
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| 2015: Human embryonic stem cells in the treatment of patients
| with spinal cord injury
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4627203/
| CommanderData wrote:
| Could a bio compatible gel containing steroids not work instead
| of systemically giving steroids?
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