As you know, I like science, especially when it brings good news like the one I am going to tell you. And believe me, she is worth her weight in Midichlorians.

Until now, when we had a lesion of the spinal cord, it was Game Over for mobility. Once the column is damaged, it was like a cut network cable: more signal between the brain and the members.

Result, permanent paralysis, a wheelchair, and a completely upset life.

But a team of Japanese researchers from Keio University has managed something completely crazy: repair this “nervous cable” thanks to Multipotent induced stem cells (IPS). And yes, we are not far from the Wolverine -style regeneration, but in a realistic and medically validated version.

But then how did they do that?

It is both simple in theory and incredibly complex in practice.

These IPS cells are the philosopher’s stone of modern medicine. Invented by Shinya Yamanaka (Nobel Prize 2012 2012), they are created by taking up ordinary mature cells and making them brainwashing so that they “forget” their specialization.

For this study, the researchers then transformed these IPS cells into Neral stem cellsthat is to say those that can develop in different types of cells in the nervous system. They then injected more than 2 million Of these cells directly in the spinal cord of 4 carefully selected patients.

Note that the timing is crucial here because all the patients had been injured between 14 and 28 days before the operation. Not before, not after. This temporal window seems to be the ideal window for cells to be able to integrate effectively.

And after a year of follow -up, two out of four patients have shown a significant improvement in their motor function. One of them, an elderly man, victim of an accident, can now stand up without support and even starts to move away. Not yet sprint for the Olympic Games, but it is already a revolution for someone who was supposed to remain paralyzed for life.

The most reassuring is thatNo serious side effects was not observed throughout this period. When you know that these cell therapies can sometimes cause catastrophic immune tumors or immune reactions, it is a hell of a relief.

We are still far from a universal solution, of course because the team of Professor Hideyuki Okano (who directs the research) must now go to a wider clinical trial to confirm these very encouraging results. And you can imagine, the process of creating and implementing these cells remains extremely complex and expensive.

But it’s still a giant step in the right direction. We still speak of repairing the spinal cord and not just relieving symptoms or offering bypass solutions such as exoskeletons.

Obviously, as always, this kind of ad is to be taken with tweezers because even if it seems to work, it is not yet generalizable immediately. But this is still good news, because the only thing we had so far as a prospect, he was an Elon Musk neurink.

And frankly, between depending on a cerebral chip that transforms you into a Starlink terminal on legs, subject to the whims of a weird billionaire … or wait for your own cells to naturally repair your spinal cord, the choice is quickly made, right?

So even if we are still far from seeing this therapy available in all hospitals, it is the kind of advance that makes me appreciate living in our time. Because healing the incuperable is still damn classy!

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