X-Message-Number: 16540
From: "Jan Coetzee" <>
Subject: Severed sinal cords repaired.
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 18:20:48 -0400

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Progress Made in Healing Injured Spines
By Megan Goldin 


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli doctors said on Thursday a clinical trial on 
paraplegics had shown success at repairing severed spinal cords and restoring 
movement to paralyzed people. 


Melissa Holley, an 18-year-old American, underwent the treatment in Israel last 
year after she was left a paraplegic following a car accident. 


Twelve months later, her doctor said, she has regained movement in her toes and 
legs and has bladder control, improving her quality of life and reducing the 
chances of a urinal infection--a common cause of death among paraplegics. 


Holley became the first person to undergo the treatment--previously tested only 
on rats--after she crushed two vertebrae and severely damaged her spinal cord in
a car accident in the United States. 


``She couldn't move. She couldn't feel anything,'' said Dr. Valentin Fulga, 
whose company, Proneuron Biotechnologies (Israel) Ltd, developed the treatment.


He said Holley began regaining sensation several months after white blood cells 
called macrophages were injected into her spinal cord at Tel Hashomer hospital 
near Tel Aviv last July. 

The body uses macrophages to heal wounds and regenerate tissue. 


``She recovered very significant motor function in her legs, although she is not
yet walking,'' Fulga said. 


Holley's father came across the Proneuron Web site, which offers to bring 
paraplegics to Israel for the experimental treatment. 


Fulga wanted, in first-stage trials, to test the method on at least five more 
people who had ``no sensation, no motor function below the site of the injury.''


The treatment is based on research by Professor Michal Schwartz from Israel's 
Weizmann Institute of Science, who found that by injecting treated macrophages 
in rats she was able to restore nerve function about 60% of the time. 


Fulga said the scarcity of macrophages in the central nervous system is a main 
reason severe spinal injuries are permanent. 


He said Schwartz's research and the initial trials have shown that macrophages 
activated to treat wounds and injected in the spinal column slowly begin to 
repair nerve fibres. 


Dr. Nachson Kenoller, a neurosurgeon who has performed the procedure on three 
people, said the spinal cord and brain had been considered areas where 
regeneration was impossible. 


``We are talking about regeneration of the spinal cord, which has never been 
recorded in the past,'' Kenoller told Reuters. 


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