Promising Technique Uses Patient’s Own Stem Cells to Repair Brain Damage

Researchers in England are working on a technique that will use a patient’s own stem cells to repair brain damage by building a “biological scaffold” that the cells can attach to and grow on, according to The Independent.

The technique would use stem cells that are already present in the patient’s brain but are inactive. “We know there are stem cells in the human brain,” Professor Andrea Brand of the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge University told The Independent. “If we can reactivate stem cells that are in the right place at the right time, that would be ideal.”

They hope to one day build the scaffolding from “synthetically made biological materials” and then insert it into a brain in which cells have been killed by a stroke or other types of brain trauma, according to The Independent. The inactive stem cells would then multiply in the scaffold and regrow tissue that had been lost.

“We know that stem cells will sometimes go to sleep and we’re studying ways of reactivating them,” Brand told The Independent. “This is really key because what we’d like to do eventually in terms of repairing the brain is to reactivate someone’s own stem cells in situ to give rise, hopefully, to the neurons that will replace those that have been damaged.”

The idea is in the very early stages of development. The researchers are currently working to identify genes that are needed to activate the stem cells, studying simpler nervous systems of creatures such as fruit flies to learn more about the process.

“In particular, we are interested in how these stem cells can generate all the different types of nerve cells that you find in the human brain,” Brand added.