Research Links

A tiny start-up company in Irvine has a shot at becoming the first to gain federal approval to test an embryonic stem cell treatment in humans. Two degenerative nerve diseases are the first targets for California Stem Cell Inc.'s therapies. They are ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, which kills adults, and...

CLEVELAND, June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Synapse Biomedical Inc. announced today it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its NeuRx DPS(TM) for ventilator-dependent Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patients who lack voluntary control of their diaphragms. With the FDA's approval, SCI patients and their caregivers...

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Geron Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) today announced the presentation of research studies indicating that GRNCM1, the company’s human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based therapeutic for the treatment of heart failure, evades direct attack by...

ScienceDaily (June 5, 2008) — A new report shows that a non-ambulatory (unable to walk or stand) child with a cervical spinal cord injury was able to restore basic walking function after intensive locomotor training. The case study, published in Physical Therapy (May 2008), the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), evaluated the effects of...

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2008) — A new study at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University identifies a key mechanism for the normal development of motor nerve cells (motor neurons) - cells that control muscles. This finding is crucial to understanding and treating a range of conditions involving nerve cell loss or damage, from spinal cord injury to neurodegenerative...

Are cars really safer? We have seen so many people with serious spinal cord injuries resulting from head on collisions, I wonder if more can’t be done to make cars safe.

But that is for another day…Today I want to talk about new procedures that can help victims of this type of injury. Each year almost 11,000 people suffer spinal cord...

ScienceDaily (May 22, 2008) — Researchers at the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England, University College London, the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan and Cancer Research UK, have for the first time identified a protein that is key to the regeneration of damage in the peripheral nervous system and which could with further research lead to understanding diseases of our peripheral nervous systems and provide clues to methods of repairing damage in the central nervous...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) can be a catastrophic event for the individual. Traditionally, such injuries were viewed as permanent, irreversible neurological dysfunction, but over time research has shown some neuroplastic capability of the injured adult mammalian spinal cord. However, spontaneous functional recovery post-SCI is very modest.
The peripheral nervous system (PNS), in contrast, is more robust in its capacity to...

May 14 (Reuters) - Geron Corp (GERN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said U.S. health regulators placed a clinical hold on its investigational new drug submission for GRNOPC1, a cell therapy for spinal cord injury, sending its shares down 22 percent to their lowest in more than four years.

"We have not yet received a letter from the FDA explaining the decision to place the submission on hold, so we are unable to comment specifically," Chief Executive Thomas Okarma said in...

Results show promising neurological recovery in severely-injured, acute cervical spinal cord injury patients treated with Cethrin HOPKINTON, Mass., May 12

HOPKINTON, Mass., May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alseres Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALSE) today announced 12-month interim data from its Phase I/IIa clinical trial of Cethrin, a proprietary recombinant protein that is being investigated for its potential to restore motor and sensory function after spinal cord injury, or SCI.  The trial...