17 replies to this topic

[JimG]

http://www.eurekaler...--ibn080510.php

Public release date: 8-Aug-2010
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

Contact: Tom Vasich
tmvasich@uci.edu
949-824-6455
University of California - Irvine
In breakthrough, nerve connections are regenerated after spinal cord injury

Researchers from UCI, UCSD and Harvard deleted a cell growth inhibitor called PTEN

Irvine, Calif. — Researchers for the first time have induced robust regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement after spinal cord injury, showing the potential for new therapeutic approaches to paralysis and other motor function impairments.

In a study on rodents, the UC Irvine, UC San Diego and Harvard University team achieved this breakthrough by turning back the developmental clock in a molecular pathway critical for the growth of corticospinal tract nerve connections.

They did this by deleting an enzyme called PTEN (a phosphatase and tensin homolog), which controls a molecular pathway called mTOR that is a key regulator of cell growth. PTEN activity is low early during development, allowing cell proliferation. PTEN then turns on when growth is completed, inhibiting mTOR and precluding any ability to regenerate.

Trying to find a way to restore early-developmental-stage cell growth in injured tissue, Zhigang He, a senior neurology researcher at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, first showed in a 2008 study that blocking PTEN in mice enabled the regeneration of connections from the eye to the brain after optic nerve damage.

He then partnered with Oswald Steward of UCI and Binhai Zheng of UCSD to see if the same approach could promote nerve regeneration in injured spinal cord sites. Results of their study appear online in Nature Neuroscience.

"Until now, such robust nerve regeneration has been impossible in the spinal cord," said Steward, anatomy & neurobiology professor and director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UCI. "Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable, but our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people."

According to Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation data, about 2 percent of Americans have some form of paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury, which is due primarily to the interruption of connections between the brain and spinal cord.

An injury the size of a grape can lead to complete loss of function below the level of injury. For example, an injury to the neck can cause paralysis of arms and legs, loss of ability to feel below the shoulders, inability to control the bladder and bowel, loss of sexual function, and secondary health risks including susceptibility to urinary tract infections, pressure sores and blood clots due to an inability to move the legs.

"These devastating consequences occur even though the spinal cord below the level of injury is intact," Steward noted. "All these lost functions could be restored if we could find a way to regenerate the connections that were damaged."

He and his colleagues are now studying whether the PTEN-deletion treatment leads to actual restoration of motor function in mice with spinal cord injury. Further research will explore the optimal timeframe and drug-delivery system for the therapy.

[Wheelsonfire]

Yes

[4wheelz]

no but sure sounds like potentially good news.

[Stand]

It is definitely great news, no doubt about it! I'm just sick of hearing what they can do on lab rats. I'll happily donate my body to science to see what they can do with this new technology in medicine. It beats sitting here!

[sarcak]

Stand117711, on 10 August 2010 - 04:22 PM, said:

It is definitely great news, no doubt about it! I'm just sick of hearing what they can do on lab rats. I'll happily donate my body to science to see what they can do with this new technology in medicine. It beats sitting here!

They studied on lab rats because , they were specially prepared for this experiment.

Quote

Trying to find a way to restore early-developmental-stage cell growth in injured tissue, Zhigang He, a senior neurology researcher at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, first showed in a 2008 study that blocking PTEN in mice enabled the regeneration of connections from the eye to the brain after optic nerve damage.

[edlee]

Since the date of the release was Aug 8 of this year,, I don't think I've heard of this one. But there have been so many "promising results" reported and the only thing they seem to produce are increased research grants to the labs responsible.

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to get extra funding,, I just wonder if the research was really geared to anything else,, in the first place. BUT Decisions on which protocals to use and how information is to be evaluated, is usually made by those who benifit from the largesse of the donations and grants,,, which are, themselves, the result of those original decisions.

With all the back room deals and sleight of hand done in the business community with a strictly profit driven motive,,, does anyone think that the same doesn't go on in the research community? I doubt there's much more altruism present in the latter than there is in the former. The idea of research for the sake of research is a pipe dream,,, it simply doesn't exist anymore. When any idiot who can throw, hit or kick a ball far enough can command saleries of tens of millions of dollars a year,,, doesn't that effect the motives of intelligent people who have dedicated many years of study. Can anyone blame them?

What it comes down to, is this,,, if you only have funding enough for ONE study,,, and you have two choices,, one which could lead to a cure, but that would take many years,,, or one that is similar to many others already underway,, but that can be accomplished quickly, and with a likely chance of success ( but no NEW paths). Which do you pick? (Remmember,, your paycheck depends on funding,, and funding comes with quick success)

Maybe I'm just becoming hardened to the yearly proclamations of "promising results" that keep coming out. That " in five years we'll have a cure",,,,, that turns into ten,,, then twenty. Think we'll have it before they catch Ben Laden?

Depressing on so many levels!!!!!
ed

[Ches]

Ed I agree and feel the same way. Only been three years for me and I'm already sick of all the research articles leading no where.

And whoever mentioned the fact it's always lab rats, I agree there too. What's sick is that the poor little fellows have to get their back intentionally broke..no one deserves that, not even an animal.

[mellowgator]

greybeard posted http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-10895816 this a day or so ago. it doesn't faze me to see another breakthrough. i've seen a lot in my 24 years post injury.

mellowgator

Edited by mellowgator, 11 August 2010 - 12:48 AM.

[JimG]

edlee, on 10 August 2010 - 09:03 PM, said:

Maybe I'm just becoming hardened to the yearly proclamations of "promising results" that keep coming out. That " in five years we'll have a cure",,,,, that turns into ten,,, then twenty. Think we'll have it before they catch Ben Laden?

Depressing on so many levels!!!!!
ed

I didn't post it to give anyone "false hope" that a cure was just around the corner.

Just thought it was an interesting read.

[mellowgator]

thanks for posting the article jim.


mellowgator

[HiltonP]

edlee, on 10 August 2010 - 09:03 PM, said:

Since the date of the release was Aug 8 of this year,, I don't think I've heard of this one. But there have been so many "promising results" reported and the only thing they seem to produce are increased research grants to the labs responsible.

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to get extra funding,, I just wonder if the research was really geared to anything else,, in the first place. BUT Decisions on which protocals to use and how information is to be evaluated, is usually made by those who benifit from the largesse of the donations and grants,,, which are, themselves, the result of those original decisions.

With all the back room deals and sleight of hand done in the business community with a strictly profit driven motive,,, does anyone think that the same doesn't go on in the research community? I doubt there's much more altruism present in the latter than there is in the former. The idea of research for the sake of research is a pipe dream,,, it simply doesn't exist anymore. When any idiot who can throw, hit or kick a ball far enough can command saleries of tens of millions of dollars a year,,, doesn't that effect the motives of intelligent people who have dedicated many years of study. Can anyone blame them?

What it comes down to, is this,,, if you only have funding enough for ONE study,,, and you have two choices,, one which could lead to a cure, but that would take many years,,, or one that is similar to many others already underway,, but that can be accomplished quickly, and with a likely chance of success ( but no NEW paths). Which do you pick? (Remmember,, your paycheck depends on funding,, and funding comes with quick success)

Maybe I'm just becoming hardened to the yearly proclamations of "promising results" that keep coming out. That " in five years we'll have a cure",,,,, that turns into ten,,, then twenty. Think we'll have it before they catch Ben Laden?

Depressing on so many levels!!!!!
ed

So refreshing to see a realistic view on "the cure".

I have muscular dystrophy and have been hearing about an imminent cure for over 40 years. I'm not holding my breath.

In that time generations of researchers have benefitted from salaries, houses, cars and countless international
junkets where they "share their papers". In that time the disabled have got ramps at the local shopping mall, and
some accessible toilets. As mentioned, research is a business and the gathering of an on-going income stream is the
driving force. Finding "the cure" would in fact be a disaster for them, as literally hundreds of thousands of researchers,
charity workers and managers around the world would be out of work and their comfortable lives would come to an end.
Ditto for much of the medical equipment manufacturers, suppliers and dealers.

So one has to ask . . . Is it in their best interests to find a cure?

[nomis]

Great news for rodents.

[Tim13]

When first injured all the buzz was about a "wise" scientist at the forefront of SCI research who was saying the cure was 'right around the corner' 'two years at the most' and other statements which, in all honesty made dealing with my new life a lot easier-hey, it's temporary, no worries.
After 17 years of hearing about miraculous breakthroughs, I know it's just another group looking for grant money but I still read every story hoping it will be the one.

[S&W Winger]

Thank you for posting, Jim...


However...any "breakthrough" will be whatever will make the most money for the medical/pharmaceutical companies...this is always the MO...


This World is based upon greed and self-interest...profits before people...just like AIDS/HIV research: the pharma corps are making a literal killing on the long-term meds...much better for profit than finding a true cure...oh OOPS, please pardon my cynicism...oh well nevermind, as it is within reason and founded upon observation...


Yes, this does sound promising for the rats...though rats are very similar to humans internally, thus their use in experiments...but like I insinuated, there may come a "treatment" but I doubt a "cure" as in the next generation of SCI'd will need to go weekly for stem cell treatments or some such, costing thousands of dollars...thus the med/pharm companies make big bucks, as well as the insurance companies (in that premiums will "need" to be raised to cover these costs)...a happy outcome for all, no???

[knightrider]

In December i'll be injured six years, and in those six years i've read so many articles, some of them sounded promising but to be honest researchers are still decades away from an actual cure that could help us folks with SCI, but saying that, it'll be for very new injured who will be treated, so i'm screwed either way. So I don't waste my time reading these things they've all lead to nowhere anyway.

[mcferguson]

Tim13, on 11 August 2010 - 01:28 PM, said:

When first injured all the buzz was about a "wise" scientist at the forefront of SCI research who was saying the cure was 'right around the corner' 'two years at the most' and other statements which, in all honesty made dealing with my new life a lot easier-hey, it's temporary, no worries.
After 17 years of hearing about miraculous breakthroughs, I know it's just another group looking for grant money but I still read every story hoping it will be the one.

The scientist you speak of is Dr. Wise Young of Rutgers University and he is actually beginning a clinical trial on humans in Hong Kong and working on getting one started in the US. Here is the most up-to-date info on the state of SCI research straight from the horse's mouth.

Hopefully the treatment works and rats will no longer have a hegemony on SCI recovery.

[edlee]

Dr. Young does seem to be one of the good guys,,, but, then,, he is well paid by Rutgers. And they get to use his name and research to help land large endowments which, in turn, pay the administators their large saleries. So,, in the end, it still comes down to money,, and how to get it. I just hope that there is something in it for us, too. Even as a by product of the business of research.
ed

[S&W Winger]

edlee, on 11 August 2010 - 07:19 PM, said:

Dr. Young does seem to be one of the good guys,,, but, then,, he is well paid by Rutgers. And they get to use his name and research to help land large endowments which, in turn, pay the administators their large saleries. So,, in the end, it still comes down to money,, and how to get it. I just hope that there is something in it for us, too. Even as a by product of the business of research.
ed

As a Rutgers alumnus, I can vouche for the large salaries...



...especially enjoy this point as it further illuminates and supports my previous post regarding the profit motive... :rlleyes:

Edited by S&W Winger, 12 August 2010 - 02:23 PM.