Category: Research (page 16)

Assistant Professor Akhilesh Gaharwar at Texas A&M University has developed a way of increasing the stiffness and toughness of collagen-based hydrogels. These biodegradable gels can be used to house stem cells and the stiffness could help researchers direct the growth of these cells into bone,…

Cells in an embryo begin deciding their future only two days after conception, when the embryo is made up of just four seemingly identical cells. By the time the embryo implants in the uterus lining, it has become a blastocyst,…

“Our research shows evidence that spinal cord injury directly causes increased risk for bacterial infection such as pneumonia. … Pneumonia is the leading cause of death after acute spinal cord injury and is associated with poor neurological outcome. Patients with spinal…

Kejin Hu, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has found a robust reprogramming factor that increases the efficiency of creating human induced pluripotent stem cells (HiPSCs) from skin fibroblasts more than 20-fold, speeds the reprogramming time by several…

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 4,000 people in the United States who suffered a spinal cord injury between 2000 and 2014 and found that early rehabilitation was associated with better physical functioning when patients left the hospital and during the following…

Restoring bladder and bowel control is very high on the list of priorities for people with spinal cord injury, second only to hand and arm function. Professor James Fawcett and his team at Cambridge University are developing a ‘biorobotic’ device that can…

In a paper published in the Journal of Neurochemistry, researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina have shown that  estrogen at a low dose could be a promising therapeutic agent for treating acute SCI. Publish paper

Key to the bionic spine is an electrode array the size of a small paperclip. With the aid of a catheter, this stent is inserted into the jugular vein in the neck and pushed up the vein until it reaches…

In a randomised clinical trial involving 64 patients with traumatic SCI, Iranian scientists have shown that the administration of progesterone and vitamin D in the acute phase is associated with better functional recovery and outcome. Published paper

A study by French researchers has shown that a year of FES was highly beneficial for one 36-year old woman with a spinal cord injury. The volunteer had improvements in strength, muscle mass, bone density, and oxygen uptake. Published paper