Bionic nerve to bring damaged limbs and organs back to life
Researchers in the School of Medicine have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life.
Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells.
Following that, they will develop an artificial nerve constructed from a biodegradable polymer to transplant the differentiated stem cells. The biomaterial will be rolled up into a tube-like structure and inserted between the two ends of the cut nerve so that the regrowing nerve fibre can go through it from one end to the other.
With a clinical trial on the biomaterial about to be completed, the researchers hope the treatment could be ready for use in four or five years.
Dr Kingham said: “The differentiated stem cells have great potential for future clinical use – for patients with traumatic injuries of nerves in the arms and legs or who have had an organ transplant. Furthermore, we could also apply the technique when a tumour is removed and takes with it a nearby nerve trunk, such as the removal of a prostate tumour where damage to the nerve leads to male impotence.”
Director of the UKCTR, Professor Giorgio Terenghi said: “This new research will improve the lives of many people. The frequency of nerve injury is one in every 1,000 of the population – or 50,000 cases in the UK – every year.
“The current repair method – a patient donating their own nerve graft to span the gap at the injury site – is far from optimal because of the poor functional outcome, the extra damage and the possibility of forming scars and tumours at the donor site. With tissue engineering the patient will not be able to tell that they had ever ‘lost’ their limb and will be able carry on exactly as they did before.”
