A new injectable therapy harnesses “dancing molecules” to reverse paralysis and repair tissue after severe spinal cord injuries. When just a single injection was administered to tissues surrounding the spinal cords of paralyzed mice, the animals regained the ability to walk just four weeks later.
The research is published in Science in the article, “Bioactive Scaffolds with Enhanced Supramolecular Motion Promote Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury.”
“Our research aims to find a therapy that can prevent individuals from becoming paralyzed after major trauma or disease,” said Samuel Stupp, PhD, professor of materials science and engineering, chemistry, medicine and biomedical engineering at Northwestern University.
“For decades, this has remained a major challenge for scientists because our body’s central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, does not have any significant capacity to repair itself after injury or after the onset of a degenerative disease. We are going straight to the FDA to start the process of getting this new therapy approved for use in human patients, who currently have very few treatment options.”
